New in SpyWeek: Close Calls

Inside those private Trump-Putin chats, the collapse of Keith Alexander’s cybersecurity firm, a foiled ISIS election plot, Tehran's opioid WMD, an internal CIA study on sexual harassment—and much more

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TELEPHONE TAG: Could U.S. intelligence agencies have monitored the calls if Donald Trump had spoken to Vladimir Putin in the years since the former U.S. president left office?

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book, War, is full of disturbing new details about the Trump-Putin relationship. Woodward reported that the two men have been in touch as many as seven times since Trump left office. He recounts a moment in early 2024 at Mar-a-Lago where Trump told an unnamed senior aide to leave the room so “he could have what he said was a private phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin.” 

Both Trump and the Kremlin denied the report, and Woodward said he was unable to corroborate it further.