House Speaker Nancy Pelosi tore into President Donald Trump on Sunday in the wake of allegations that Russia put bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan, reiterating her earlier claims that with Trump, everything he does links back to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
"This is as bad as it gets and yet the president will not confront the Russians on this score. He denies being briefed. Whether he is or not, his administration knows and some of our allies who work with us in Afghanistan have been briefed and accept this report," Pelosi said on ABC's "This Week."
"Just as I've said to the president, with him, all roads lead to Putin. I don't know what the Russians have on the president — politically, personally, financially, or whatever it is — but he wants to bring them back into the G-8 despite the annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Ukraine, despite what they yielded to him in Syria, despite [Putin's] intervention in our election, which is well-documented by our intelligence community, and despite now possibly this allegation, which [Congressional leaders] should have been briefed on."
Trump denied being briefed on the subject despite a report that said he was informed of the bounties in March. Hours after Pelosi's interview, it was reported that the U.S. has proof the bounties resulted in American military deaths at the hands of Taliban-linked insurgents.
"The president wants to ignore any allegation against Russia," Pelosi said. "Russia's never gotten over the humiliation they suffered in Afghanistan, and now they're taking it out on us. Our troops. This is totally outrageous. You would think that the minute he heard of this, the president would want to know more instead of denying that he knew anything."
She added, "This is appalling. This is beyond — well, the list is a long one in terms of his ignoring what Russia has done.
"He is a gift to Russia to diminish our leadership in NATO, to diminish our troops in Germany, all a gift to Putin. Something is very wrong here. But this must have an answer."
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