An “angry, little man” who “suffers from a debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome”: This is how the Trump campaign described veteran journalist Bob Woodward on Tuesday, in response to claims made in Mr. Woodward’s latest book. 

The book, “War,” which will be released on October 15, reportedly includes claims that President Trump had a number of secret phone calls with President Putin and that Trump secretly sent Covid testing equipment to the Russian leader. The book, about which CNN reported details after obtaining a copy, cites a Trump aide claiming that the former president had “maybe as many as seven” calls with Mr. Putin since leaving office in 2021. 

“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’s communications director, Steven Cheung, said in a statement on Tuesday. “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,” he added, in reference to Trump’s $50 million lawsuit against Mr. Woodward for publishing tapes from presidential interviews in his 2020 book, “Rage.” 

Trump’s campaign said that the Republican nominee gave Mr. Woodward “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.”

“Woodward is a total sleazebag who has lost it mentally, and he’s slow, lethargic, incompetent and overall a boring person with no personality,” Mr. Cheung’s statement concluded. 

In addition to Mr. Woodward’s reporting about Trump’s alleged interactions with Mr. Putin, CNN reported that the book includes a look at “President Joe Biden’s blunt, profanity-laced assessments and interactions with the world leaders who have shaped his presidency, from Benjamin Netanyahu to Vladimir Putin.” 

“That son of a b—, Bibi Netanyahu, he’s a bad guy,” Mr. Biden reportedly said of Israel’s prime minister as the war ramped up earlier this year. “He’s a bad f—ing guy!” 

“That f—ing Putin,” Mr. Biden told his advisors after Russia invaded Ukraine, CNN’s report notes, citing Mr. Woodward’s book. “Putin is evil. We are dealing with the epitome of evil.” Other details from the book include that Mr. Biden’s national security advisors at one point thought there was a substantial chance — 50 percent — that Mr. Putin would resort to using nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Mr. Biden also criticized President Obama’s handling of Russia’s invasion of Crimea, saying that “Barack never took Putin seriously,” the report notes. 

The Sun has reached out to Mr. Woodward and the White House for comment. 

A description of Mr. Woodward’s book ahead of its release next week says that “War” is an “intimate and sweeping account of one of the most tumultuous periods in presidential politics and American history.”

“We see President Joe Biden and his top advisers in tense conversations with Russian president Vladimir Putin, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky,” the description reads. “We also see Donald Trump, conducting a shadow presidency and seeking to regain political power.”