Fox News is completely ignoring a new report that former President Donald Trump has regularly communicated with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office — the type of behavior that some of its star hosts dubiously described as criminal when it involved a Democrat.

The Washington Post reported Tuesday that in his forthcoming book, War, Post associate editor Bob Woodward reveals that according to his sources, Trump “secretly sent” scarce COVID-19 tests to Putin “for his personal use” in 2020, and he has maintained an open line of communication with Russia’s authoritarian leader after leaving the White House. From the report:

Four years later, the personal relationship between the two men appears to have persisted, Woodward reports, as Trump campaigns to return to the White House and Putin orchestrates his bloody assault on Ukraine. In early 2024, the former president ordered an aide away from his office at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and residence in Florida, so he could conduct a private phone call with the Russian leader, according to Woodward’s account.

The book does not describe what the two men purportedly discussed, and it quotes a Trump campaign official casting doubt on the supposed contact. But the unnamed Trump aide cited in the book indicated that the GOP standard-bearer may have spoken to Putin as many as seven times since Trump left the White House in 2021.

This is big enough news that all four members of the Democratic and Republican presidential tickets have weighed in: Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz both highlighted Woodward’s reporting on Trump’s ties to Putin, Trump denied that he had been speaking with the Russian dictator, and Ohio Sen. JD Vance responded by saying, “Even if it's true, look — is there something wrong with speaking to world leaders? No. Is there anything wrong with engaging in diplomacy?”

But no Fox program mentioned Trump’s reported communications with Putin — or any aspect of Woodward’s reporting — in the 24 hours after the Post published its account of the book. 

By contrast, several Fox shows covered a 2018 report that former Secretary of State John Kerry was working to save the Iran nuclear deal by meeting with top officials from Iran, Germany, and France. In fact, some of those same hosts who are ignoring Woodward’s report that Trump communicated with Putin during the Biden administration previously called for Kerry’s criminal prosecution. 

Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy, for example, told viewers, “Some have suggested, isn’t he breaking the Logan Act.” 

Fox host Sean Hannity similarly suggested that Kerry was “violating the law, the Logan Act,” and urged his prosecution, saying, “Where are the agents in the FBI and the DOJ breaking down John Kerry's door? Another blatant example of a two-tier justice system sadly in this country today.” He later added, “Let's see when that investigation begins.”

Legal experts debunked the claim that Kerry had violated the law, arguing that the Logan Act, which prohibits private citizens from engaging in unauthorized intervention in foreign disputes to “defeat the measures of the United States,” wouldn't apply.

But Fox’s coverage had real consequences. Trump, who spent much of his presidency glued to his television set taking action based on what he saw, responded to Fox’s coverage with fury — and ultimately, took Hannity’s advice and spurred the Justice Department to launch an ultimately unsuccessful probe of Kerry’s actions.