Mar-a-Lago 'is like North Korea': Here are the 5 biggest bombshells from Woodward’s book

08 October 2024

Legendary journalist Bob Woodward — who scooped Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal while he was at the Washington Post — has a new book coming out next week entitled "War," and new details are emerging about former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden's administration. Five particular snippets are uniquely newsworthy as the November election looms just weeks away.

1. Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin "as many as seven times" after leaving office

The New York Times reported Tuesday that in 2021, after he was once again a private citizen, Trump stayed in touch with Putin. This included up to seven calls with the Russian dictator — notably at the same time he was keeping classified top-secret government documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. This appears to be a violation of the Logan Act, which is a 1799 law prohibiting private citizens from communicating with foreign governments without prior approval from the current administration. The exact details of the calls are not known, and Woodward reported that Trump ordered aides out of the room so he could conduct his calls with Putin in private.

2. Trump gave Putin Covid-19 tests during global shortage in 2020

According to the Washington Post, the former president also sent Putin several Covid-19 tests "for his personal use" in 2020, while the world was experiencing a shortage of them during the peak of the pandemic. The Russian leader warned Trump to keep his gift a secret, saying: "I don't want you to tell anyone, because people will get mad at you, not me." At the time Trump sent Putin the testing kits, a 2022 study published by the National Institutes of Health noted that the global test shortage severely hampered the ability of U.S. health officials to detect, trace and contain the deadly virus.

3. Lindsey Graham said Mar-a-Lago was like North Korea

A Tuesday report in the Daily Beast mentioned that Woodward interviewed Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina) for his book, and the Palmetto State's senior U.S. senator uttered a particularly revealing statement about Trump's Palm Beach County estate. While on the record, Graham said: "Going to Mar-a-Lago is a little bit like going to North Korea. Everybody stands up and claps every time Trump comes in." He also said that the former president was "becoming more erratic" due to contending with four ongoing criminal trials.

4. The crown prince of Saudi Arabia keeps a burner phone just to call Trump

Parts of the book are dedicated to how other foreign leaders interacted with Trump during his time in the White House. In one section, Woodward wrote that Mohammed bin Salman – the crown prince of Saudi Arabia known for his brutal dismemberment and execution of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi — keeps a burner phone labeled "TRUMP 45." According to Woodward, Graham told Salman "hey, let's call Trump" while he was part of an overseas contingent to visit Saudi Arabia. At that point, an aide reportedly approached Salman with a bag of roughly 50 burner phones. One of those phones was labeled "JAKE SULLIVAN," who is the Biden's current National Security Advisor.

5. Biden complained he "should have never picked Garland" to be Attorney General

Woodward's book also has several revealing sections about Biden. CNN reported that in one chapter, Biden commiserated about Attorney General Merrick Garland and how his Department of Justice was handling its prosecution of his son, Hunter. Garland appointed David Weiss — the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the District of Delaware who stayed on under Biden — to handle the Hunter Biden investigation. Garland also had Robert Hur, who was another Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney in the District of Maryland, oversee the DOJ's investigation into Biden's handling of classified documents. At one point, a frustrated Biden was quoted grumbling to an associate that he "should have never picked Garland," and that the Hunter Biden case was "never going to f—ing go away."

Woodward's book will hit shelves nationwide on Tuesday, October 15.

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