#Trump vows to ‘hit’ Russia ‘so hard’ if bounties report is true

President Trump on Thursday vowed to “hit” Russia “so hard your head would spin” if it’s proven that the Russian government paid bounties to kill US troops in Afghanistan.

Trump and his aides frequently say that the allegation, reported in June, was not confirmed by intelligence agencies.

“Well, you don’t know about the bounties. I mean, you are telling me — if you know something, you could let us know. But you obviously don’t know very much about it,” Trump told a reporter in the Oval Office during a visit by Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhimi.

Trump added: “But if we found out that would be true, if we found that would be a very — it would be a fact, what you just said, we would hit them so hard your head would spin.”

Trump also fielded a reporter’s question about the hospitalization of Russian opposition politician Alexei Navalny, whose illness is suspected to be poisoning.

“We haven’t seen it yet. We’re looking at it and [Secretary of State] Mike [Pompeo] is gonna be reporting to me soon,” Trump said.

Trump frequently boasts of being tougher on Russia than his predecessors, frustrated by Democrats’ claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin helped him win the 2016 US election by hacking Democratic emails. The top US counterintelligence official said this month that Russia again appears to favor Trump over “what it sees as an anti-Russia ‘establishment’.”