Trump won’t confirm whether he has spoken with Putin, but says it would be ‘smart’ if he did

Donald Trump won’t say whether he’s spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin since he left office.

But he says doing so would be good for the country.

“I don’t comment on that,” he said at an event before the Chicago Economic Club. “But I will tell you that if I did it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I can have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing and not a bad thing in terms of a country.”

Journalist Bob Woodward reported in his new book, “War,” that Trump has had as many as seven private phone calls with Putin since leaving office and secretly sent the Russian president COVID-19 test machines during the height of the pandemic.

Trump spokesperson Steve Cheung called the reporting false. Trump told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that Woodward is “a storyteller. A bad one. And he’s lost his marbles.”