October 2, 2016 | No Comments
The reaction of Donald Trump’s camp to The New York Times’ revelations about his taxes? They appreciate the congrats.
Despite Trump’s longstanding refusal to release his tax returns and his threat of legal action against the Times for publishing portions of his 1995 returns, which show a $916 million loss that would have allowed him to avoid paying personal income tax for up to 18 years, his surrogates spun the bombshell Sunday morning as proof of the Republican nominee’s brilliance.
“My response is he’s a genius,” Rudy Giuliani said on ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos.
“Absolute genius,” the former New York mayor continued. “I mean, the man in ‘The Art of the Deal,’ this is described. First of all, we’re talking about 26 years ago, perfectly legal. We should get that straight immediately. This is a perfectly legal application of the tax code. And he would’ve been fool not to take advantage of it.”
But so far, Trump’s closest allies remain isolated in arguing that the tax revelations vindicate the billionaire businessman, with party leaders conspicuously silent so far on a story that threatens to create a second consecutive week of negative coverage of Trump’s flailing campaign.
“I’m old enough to remember when Rudy Giuliani was a serious person. And Chris Christie. And Newt Gingrich. #TrumpismCorrupts,” tweeted Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol.
Meanwhile, longtime Trump ally Roger Stone hinted that Hillary Clinton may soon be responding to an October surprise of her own, setting up the prospect that both historically unpopular nominees spend the closing weeks of the campaign navigating waves of new revelations rather than debating policy or presenting positive visions for the future.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, hours after the Times published its tax story, Stone tweeted, “Wednesda @HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.” Stone did not respond to a request for more information on the coming revelations, but WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said his organization is preparing to publish damaging information on Hillary Clinton. Last week, “Morning Joe” senior producer Jesse Rodriguez tweeted, “Julian Assange set to make an announcement from his balcony in London next Tuesday, according to @WikiLeaks.”
Clinton’s surrogates spent Sunday morning painting Trump’s avoidance of federal personal income tax as a revelation that he both failed in business and didn’t pay his share.
Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill said the revelations undermined Trump’s efforts to position himself as a “champion of working people.” And Bernie Sanders tied the issue to the ability of the rich to take advantage of the tax code. “Trump wants to even make a bad situation worse by repealing the estate tax,” he charged on ABC’s “This week.”
Still, Trump’s boosters took a defensive posture. Chris Christie professed to be in awe of Trump’s tax-minimizing prowess. “The genius of Donald trump has been to make sure he follows the law,” he said on “Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace.
Asked by Wallace if his position was “no apologies,” Christie responded, “Oh for gosh sakes, no apologies for following the law and taking a bow for saying even before this story came out we need to change the tax laws.”
But Christie also refused to concede that Trump actually used the loss: “You can’t come on TV this morning and say that Donald trump did not pay taxes for years and years when that’s not what the story said.”
When Wallace contended that he concluded Trump had likely avoided paying taxes given that his campaign’s late-night statement on the story did not deny the Times’ suggestion that he did so, Christie responded, “Well, that’s a big assumption on your part.”
And on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Giuliani told Chuck Todd that the story justified Trump’s refusal to release his returns. “This points out one of the reasons why releasing tax returns is so bad. The New York Times writes this long story. And then somewhere around paragraph 18 they point out there was no wrongdoing. Now, people have a hard time understanding how taxes work.”