Former acting CIA director explains why Trump's inaction on Russian bounty scandal will make things worse

It was revealed nearly two weeks ago that the Russian government is paying a bounty to the Taliban for killing American soldiers.

Since then, President Donald Trump has denied that he and his administration knew anything about it. Then he claimed it was a hoax. Now it has become clear that the stories are not only true but that if Trump read his presidential daily briefing in 2019, he would have been aware of the problem.

Speaking to the House Thursday, Trump's former acting CIA director Michael Morell explained that things are being made far worse by the president's denial.

He began by saying that he didn't recommend any steps the U.S. should take in response, "but I think it's important that we recognize something about Vladimir Putin's personality: He is a risk-taker."

"And when he takes a risk and he succeeds, in his mind, he is often willing to take larger risks in the future. So, the failure for him to have any cost here, I think significantly increases the chances of him doing something else...possibly even larger than what we’ve seen in this case."

See the video below: