Trump called out the “Good Morning America” host on Friday after being pressed about releasing his tax returns, noting Stephanopoulos’ relationship with Hillary Clinton.
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Trump, who has all but locked up the Republican Party’s nomination for the November 8 presidential election, has said the Internal Revenue Service is auditing his returns and he wants to wait until the review is over before making them public. Last week, Trump said that “there’s nothing to learn” from his tax returns and dismissed any need for voters to see them. Just as I think Donald Trump will feel better after he finally succumbs and releases his tax returns.
But Trump said he fights “very hard” to pay as little tax as possible because the government wastes money.
“I don’t think they do”.
During the thick of the Republican primary, Trump vowed to release his tax returns, but he has since resisted by claiming that he can not release them while the IRS is auditing them. “They’re not going to learn anything”, Trump said by phone. The same letter says, “Your returns for these years [2009-2015] report items that are attributable to continuing transactions on activities that were also reported on returns for 2008 and earlier”.
“Given Mr Trump’s equanimity with other flaws in his history, we can only assume it’s a bombshell of unusual size”, he said.
Trump has moved into a virtual tie with Clinton in several recent national polls since he became the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency.
Whatever the reasons, Trump’s constantly changing positions about his returns – gonna release them, can’t release them, want to release them, might release them – raise suspicions that he’s concealing something. The wheels started to fall off for Trump when he was asked when he released his tax returns when applying for a casino license, but won’t do so when running for president. Stephanopoulos refused to let Trump off the hook and countered that Hillary Clinton did release emails, at which point, the billionaire lashed out at his questioner.
Among the political leaders who have come forward to eviscerate The Donald over his tax return stance is former GOP nominee Mitt Romney.
While low-income and middle-income earners would also pay less – couples earning $50,000 or less would send in a one-page form to the IRS declaring, “I win” – the plan would disproportionately benefit the wealthy as well as Trump himself. He had previously promised to open his tax returns to public scrutiny.
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Clinton, meanwhile, has advocated shifting the country to 50 percent clean energy by 2030, promised heavy regulation of fracking, and said her prospective administration would put coal companies “out of business”.
