White House press secretary claims Donald Trump 'does read and he's the most informed man on planet Earth when it comes to the threats we face' - after he DENIED being briefed on Russian bounties

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany made the bold claim Tuesday that President Trump was the most informed person in the world. 

'The president does read and he also consumes intelligence verbally,' McEnany said. 'This president, I'll tell you, is the most informed person on planet earth.' 

McEnany was being asked if the intelligence that said Russia was paying bounties to the Taliban to kill U.S. soldiers was in the President's Daily Brief, with the reporter suggesting that Trump might not have read it. 

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White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told reporters that President Trump was the 'most informed person on planet earth' after a White House reporter suggested that he may have missed intelligence on Russia paying bounties because he didn't read it 

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McEnany said Tuesday that President Trump 'does read,' as the White House pushed back on reporting that said the president was briefed on Russia paying bounties to Taliban fighters to kill Americans, but didn't act on it 

McEnany pushed back on that idea, saying Trump is indeed a reader. 

She told reporters at Tuesday's White House press briefing that the president was 'never' briefed on this intelligence. 

'This intelligence still has not been verified and there's no consensus among the intelligence community,' she said. 

She also told reporters she would never tell them the contents of the President's Daily Brief or PDB. 

'I will never confirm or deny what's in a top secret document,' she said. 

Additionally, McEnany said that Trump was now up to speed. 

'The president has been briefed on what is, unfortunately, in the public domain because of The New York Times and the irresponsible leak, yes he has been briefed,' she told reporters. 

The Times reported Friday that American intelligence officials had concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit had bribed Taliban-connected fighters to kill coalition forces in Afghanistan, including U.S. troops. 

Sources told the paper that Trump was informed of the issue in late March.

But then the Associated Press reported that top White House officials were aware of the scheme in early 2019. 

The intelligence was included in one of Trump's PDBs, the AP reported. 

And then-National Security Adviser John Bolton told colleagues he had briefed Trump on the issue.  

McEnany claimed the leaks came from 'rogue intelligence officers' who are anti-Trump.

Trump's rival in the general election, Democrat Joe Biden, used the scandal Tuesday to question the president's cognitive ability.  

'This president is talking about cognitive capability, he isn't even cognitively aware of what's going on,' Biden told reporters in Delaware. 'He either reads and-or gets briefed on important issues and he forgets it, or he doesn't think it's necessary that he need to know it.'

Biden said it was a 'dereliction of duty' on Trump's part because he did nothing when recently speaking to Russian President Vladimir Putin.