President Joe Biden told allies that former President Barack Obama's lack of concern toward Russia led to the invasion of Ukraine, a new book from journalist Bob Woodward claims.
Excerpts from War, set to be released on Oct. 15 by Simon & Schuster, have begun leaking to the press, including allegedly verbatim statements from Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu , and more.
"They f***ed up in 2014," Biden allegedly told a close associate, according to leaked passages of the book published by CNN . "That's why we are here. We f***ed it up. Barack never took Putin seriously."
Biden's national security advisers believed at one point that there was a 50-50 chance of Putin using nuclear weapons on Ukraine, the book claims.
The book alleges that Biden became increasingly incensed at the situation inherited from the previous Democrat administration, saying, “We did nothing. We gave Putin a license to continue! Well, I’m revoking his f***ing license!”
Woodward also asserted former President Donald Trump has maintained a clandestine point of contact with Putin, citing a Trump aide who claimed there have been at least seven private phone calls between the two.
War is explicitly positioned against Trump in its promotional material and leaked excerpts, claiming the former president is a dangerous and reckless leader.
The Trump camp has dismissed the book and characterized it as a political hack job driven by a political vendetta.
"None of these made-up stories by Bob Woodward are true and are the work of a truly demented and deranged man who suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome," Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said of the book in a statement. "Woodward is an angry, little man and is clearly upset because President Trump is successfully suing him because of the unauthorized publishing of recordings he made previously."
Trump is suing Woodward for $50 million after the journalist published interview tapes recorded while Trump was president in 2019 and 2020.
Woodward's legal team fought to dismiss the suit in September 2023, but the case is still ongoing.
"President Trump gave him absolutely no access for this trash book that either belongs in the bargain bin of the fiction section of a discount bookstore or used as toilet tissue," Cheung continued. "Woodward is a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally, and he's slow, lethargic, incompetent and overall a boring person with no personality."
Woodward began writing War as a report on the Russian invasion of Ukraine , but it was expanded to include the Middle East following the devastating terrorist attacks on Israel in 2023.
Leaked excerpts also contain a variety of foul-mouthed criticisms from Biden directed at Netanyahu, whom he allegedly called a "bad f***ing guy" during a meeting as the Israel-Hamas conflict escalated in early 2024.
Woodward alleged that Biden confronted Netanyahu behind the scenes as the Israel Defense Forces mobilized following the Oct. 7 attack, asserting that the prime minister had "no strategy."
“Bibi, what the f***?” Biden scolded Netanyahu in July, according to the passages obtained by CNN. "You know the perception of Israel around the world increasingly is that you’re a rogue state, a rogue actor."
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Publishers promise War will reveal intimate details about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the war between Israel and Hamas, and how both conflicts orbit an internal U.S. power struggle for the Oval Office. It claims to paint "an intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history."
It is the latest work from Woodward, 81, who rose to fame following his investigation into the Watergate scandal with fellow Washington Post reporter Carl Bernstein.
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