Biden campaign calls Trump's failure to raise Russian bounties with Putin "despicable"

• "That was a phone call to discuss other things, and frankly, that’s an issue that many people said was fake news," Trump told Axios' Jonathan Swan.

What they're saying: "The most critical and sacred obligation of a commander-in-chief is to protect those who serve our nation in harm's way," the Biden campaign's rapid response director Andrew Bates said in a statement.

• "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 warzone, our president continues to turn his back on those who put their lives on the line for our country, and on his own duty."
• "This continues an indefensible pattern of Donald Trump weakening the United States in the world in a manner that no American president ever has before, and it's absolutely despicable."