--- title: Trump Says He's Never Discussed Taliban Bounties With Putin description: Trump says he has “never discussed” reports that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan with Vladimir Putin canonical: https://time.com/5873223/trump-taliban-bounties-putin/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-07-29T15:03:05.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-24T09:03:35.412Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Insists He Never Discussed Taliban Bounties With Putin og:description: Donald Trump says he “never discussed” reports of Taliban bounties with Putin despite having numerous phone calls og:url: https://time.com/5873223/trump-taliban-bounties-putin/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt62685fc102aa7e2a/698a10ccb3fce3d2c90c6fce/trump-putin-taliban-bounties.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: FINLAND-US-RUSSIA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-SUMMIT og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Insists He Never Discussed Taliban Bounties With Putin twitter:description: Donald Trump says he “never discussed” reports of Taliban bounties with Putin despite having numerous phone calls twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt62685fc102aa7e2a/698a10ccb3fce3d2c90c6fce/trump-putin-taliban-bounties.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Trump Says He's 'Never Discussed' Reports of Taliban Bounties With Russian President Vladimir Putin by [Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou / Bloomberg Jul 29, 2020 3:03 PM UTC  U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a meeting at Finland's Presidential Palace on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin arrive for a meeting at Finland's Presidential Palace on July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland.Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty Images by [Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou / Bloomberg Jul 29, 2020 3:03 PM UTC President Donald Trump says he “never discussed” reports that [Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan](https://time.com/5861815/intelligence-agencies-disagree-russia-taliban/) with Russian President Vladimir Putin, despite having numerous phone calls as recently as last week. “I have never discussed it with him,” Trump told Axios in a [video clip](https://twitter.com/axios/status/1288414395392040960?s=20) posted on Twitter Wednesday. Trump said he didn’t raise the matter in last Thursday’s discussion. “That was a phone call to discuss other things, and frankly that’s an issue that many people said was fake news.” > [](https://twitter.com/axios/status/1288414395392040960) The interview immediately prompted a response from the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. “The most critical and sacred obligation of a commander-in-chief is to protect those who serve our nation in harm’s way. But months after the U.S. intelligence community sounded the alarm — to Donald Trump and to our allies — that Russia was placing bounties on the heads of American servicemen and women in a war zone, our president continues to turn his back on those who put their lives on the line for our country, and on his own duty,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. **Read more:** [_How Donald Trump’s Mistakes Became Joe Biden’s Big Breaks_](https://time.com/5858837/donald-trump-joe-biden-luck/) Axios reported that Trump and Putin have spoken at least eight times since the intelligence community submitted information about the alleged Russian bounties, reportedly in the president’s daily brief in February. Trump said in the interview that evidence about the Russia bounties “never reached my desk” and the White House has maintained the intelligence was inconclusive since the New York _Times_ [reported](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html) on it in June. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5873223/trump-taliban-bounties-putin/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5873223/trump-taliban-bounties-putin/"},"headline":"Trump Says He's 'Never Discussed' Reports of Taliban Bounties With Russian President Vladimir Putin","datePublished":"2020-07-29T15:03:05.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T09:03:35.412Z","description":"Donald Trump says he “never discussed” reports of Taliban bounties with Putin despite having numerous phone calls","url":"https://time.com/5873223/trump-taliban-bounties-putin/","keywords":["Foreign Policy","russia","Donald Trump","wire","News Desk"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt62685fc102aa7e2a/698a10ccb3fce3d2c90c6fce/trump-putin-taliban-bounties.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou / Bloomberg"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt62685fc102aa7e2a/698a10ccb3fce3d2c90c6fce/trump-putin-taliban-bounties.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"FINLAND-US-RUSSIA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-SUMMIT","caption":"FINLAND-US-RUSSIA-POLITICS-DIPLOMACY-SUMMIT","creditText":"Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/foreign-policy/","name":"Foreign Policy"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5873223/trump-taliban-bounties-putin/","name":"Trump Says He's 'Never Discussed' Reports of Taliban Bounties With Russian President Vladimir Putin"}}]}] ```