The arrival of a new Bob Woodward book has a well-established choreography; enterprising reporters get hold of copies of the heavily embargoed volume a week or so ahead of its publication date and mine it for the news it contains.

Both CNN and The Washington Post, where Woodward retains the honorific title of associate editor, covered the news in the latest book, “War,” last week. And news there was: At the height of the pandemic, President Donald Trump sent Russian President Vladimir Putin a secret shipment of Covid-19 testing equipment, and since he has left office, Trump has called Putin as many as seven times.

Ahead of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, President Joe Biden blamed former President Barack Obama for not doing more to counter the Russian leader when he invaded Crimea in 2014, telling a friend, “That’s why we are here. We fucked it up. Barack never took Putin seriously.”

Putin had a heated call with Biden in the run-up to Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, in which the Russian president threatened a nuclear war. Later, Biden’s national security team assessed there was a 50% chance Putin might use a tactical nuclear weapon during the Ukraine conflict. It is worth noting that back in March, CNN’s Jim Sciutto had similar detailed reporting about Putin’s possible use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine in late 2022.

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Woodward notes that neither Biden nor Trump spoke to him for this book, but he still got great access. It’s clear from a close reading of “War”that almost every top national security official in the Biden administration spoke with him. Those officials did so surely because they understood that if they didn’t talk to Woodward, their peers certainly would. So, if they wanted to get their version of history told, it only made sense to cooperate with the legendary reporter, who, at age 81, has more energy and puts in more shoe leather than reporters half his age.

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The Middle East regional war Biden tried to avoid

A year after Hamas attacked Israel, killing some 1,200 Israelis, the Biden team has not prevented an escalating regional conflict. Instead of showing purposeful leadership, the Biden administration has repeatedly handed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a blank check, which he has used to carry out large-scale attacks not only in Gaza but also in the West Bank and Lebanon, as well as more targeted operations in Syria and Yemen.

The war is Gaza has claimed the lives of 42,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, while the death toll in Lebanon is more than 1,500 since Israel launched a ground operation there in recent weeks, and a million Lebanese have fled their homes, according to the UN.

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Biden’s unwavering support for Netanyahu even has a name — “the bear hug”— and while the president has occasionally protested publicly about the level of casualties in Gaza, the de facto policy is strong support for Israel; for instance, the Biden administration is going forward with the sale of $18 billion of F-15 fighter jets to the country.

Earlier this year, the Biden administration tried without success to get Netanyahu not to attack the densely populated Gazan city of Rafah, where an estimated 1.5 million Palestinians were sheltering, many of them evicted from their homes earlier in the conflict.