Stephanopoulos noted that Trump has come under fire from Democratic rival Hillary Clinton for not releasing his tax returns and asked if the American people deserve to see his tax returns prior to the election. However, I firmly believe that Mr. Trump should not release his tax returns to the public.
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Huckabee also argued it’s “an invasion of privacy” for presidential candidates to release their tax returns, writing, “The qualifications for the Presidency are clear-cut, and there are specific financial disclosure forms you must file”. The New York Times reported that Trump responded, “I don’t think they do but I do say this, I will really gladly give them – not going to learn anything but it’s under routine audit”.
“When the audit ends I will present them”, Trump said of his returns.
The ad rolled out by Hillary Clinton’s campaign Saturday notes that every presidential nominee since 1976 has released their tax returns to the public.
Maybe Trump isn’t paying as much in taxes as he should be paying.
Allowing Trump to phone in his interview, Stephanopoulos batted away questions about his connections to the Clinton’s by repeatedly pressing Trump to release his income taxes filings as Trump kept saying it would be hard because he’s being audited. He said the audit should be finished before the election.
After saying he would release them, he now claims he can not because they were being audited.
Don’t be surprised if he says something like this at one of his yuuuge rallies: “Do I make deals that lower my taxes?”.
Clinton has advocated shifting the country to 50% clean energy by 2030, promised heavy regulation of fracking, and said her prospective administration would put coal companies “out of business”. Trump pointed to her refusal to release the transcripts of her speeches in his interview with Stephanopoulos. “There are emails missing all over the place”, Trump said.
Tax returns provide the public with its sole confirmation of the veracity of a candidate’s representations regarding charities, priorities, wealth, tax conformance, and conflicts of interest.
The heated back-and-forth ended with Stephanopolous asking Trump to identify his tax rate.
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“The audit is no excuse”, Stephanopolous says in the Friday exchange. Trump notes that there are plenty of Hillary’s e-mails that are missing, and Stephanopoulos argues that the only e-mails missing are from Hillary’s staff – but that ignores the fact that Hillary erased more than 30,000 e-mails before finally turning over the server’s contents to the State Department and eventually the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I hope my 21 year old cat sprouts wings so she can go to PETCO and get all the food she gobbles up twice a day and save me all that the driving.
