President Donald Trump appeared to excuse Russia providing weapons to the Taliban, saying that the United States once did the same thing. In an interview with Axios on HBO, Trump dismissed intelligence that Russia offered bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops—and then went on to cast doubt on claims that Russia supplies arms to the insurgents. The former head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan has said clearly and on the record that Russia does indeed smuggle weapons across the Tajik border to the Taliban. Asked about whether he believes that is the case, Trump said: “Well, we supplied weapons when they were fighting Russia too. The Taliban, in Afghanistan... I’m just saying, we did that too.” Pressed on whether he has even heard that Russia arms the Taliban, Trump responded: “I have heard that but, again, it’s never reached my desk.” The president then went on a historical tangent, saying: “Russia used to be a thing called the Soviet Union. Because of Afghanistan, they went bankrupt, they became Russia... The last thing that Russia wants to do is get too involved in Afghanistan, they tried that once and it didn’t work out.”