President Donald Trump admitted that he did not mention US intelligence indicating that Russia paid the Taliban to kill US troops during a call with Vladimir Putin last week. In fact, Trump says he “never” mentioned the problem with the Russian president apparently because he doesn’t believe in the CIA.
the New York Times In June, they reported that US intelligence officials concluded “months ago” that a Russian military intelligence unit paid for every US soldier or ally killed. There is some disagreement in the intelligence community: The National Security Agency reportedly disagreed with the CIA findings.
But since he had Putin on the phone, a United States president is to be expected to ask at least about intelligence showing that Russia had incentivized Taliban militants to assassinate US troops. In an interview with Axios on HBO, Trump said he was not bothered.
When asked why he sidestepped the problem with Putin last week, Trump replied, “That was a phone call to discuss other things, and frankly, that’s an issue that a lot of people said was fake news.”
Last month, the Times The report was followed by a wave of confusion over whether Trump was actually briefed on damning intelligence. The White House insisted that Trump never received any information, but later it was reported that it was included in the President’s Daily Report in February, and that he simply could not read it.
When asked if that was the case, Trump told Axios that he does read the PDB, commenting “they like to say I don’t read, I read a lot,” and went on to say, “I understand extraordinarily well. Probably better than anyone you’ve ever read. interviewed in a long time. “
Trump continued to repeat the claim that intelligence “never came [his] desk.”
He also said that he had not been provided with evidence that Russia was arming the Taliban, despite the fact that the former head of US forces in Afghanistan clearly stated that Russia is smuggling weapons to the Taliban from Tajikistan.
Even if it were true, Trump said, “Well, we supplied weapons when they were also fighting Russia. The Taliban, in Afghanistan … I’m just saying we did too.”
The president played down Putin’s desire to intervene in Afghanistan. “Russia used to be a thing called the Soviet Union. Because of Afghanistan, they filed for bankruptcy, they became Russia, ”he said. “The last thing Russia wants to do is get too involved in Afghanistan, they tried it once and it didn’t work.”
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