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Donald Trump addresses the first U.S. presidential debate against Joe Biden Tuesday night, following opinion polls and now reeling from dramatic newspaper revelations detailing his chronic financial losses and years of tax evasion.
Trump paid just $ 750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he ran and won the election, the New York Times reported. In 2017, he paid just $ 750 again. And you didn’t pay any federal income taxes in 10 of the previous 15 years.
His Democratic rival Biden is likely to weaponize evidence that Trump is paying far less than many of his working-class supporters when the two men meet in the first debate in Cleveland, Ohio.
The Biden campaign was quick to capitalize on the report, launching an attack ad that contrasted Trump’s $ 750 pay with elementary school teachers (who normally pay $ 7,239), firefighters ($ 5,283), construction managers ($ 16,447) and registered nurses ($ 10,216).
Biden hopes to persuade voters who voted for Barack Obama but changed Trump in 2016 that the president is a con artist whose connection to workers is illusory. As the county moves toward the November 3 election, Biden has portrayed the race as “Scranton v Park Avenue,” pitting his Pennsylvania hometown against wealthy Manhattan, where Trump built his brand empire and television career. of reality.
Other Democrats amplified Biden’s criticism. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tweeted an emoji asking supporters to raise their hands “if you paid more in federal income taxes than President Trump.”
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, tweeted: “SEVEN HUNDRED FIFTY DOLLARS. That’s why he hid his tax returns. Because all the time I was not paying taxes. But you were. “
About half of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes, but the average income tax paid in 2017 was nearly $ 12,200, according to the IRS.
Supporters who attend his campaign rallies often cite his business acumen and the sacrifice they say he made to pursue politics as reasons to vote for him.
But the New York Times report also showed that Trump has lost more money than he made, which has taken a toll on the image of a successful businessman he cultivated on the reality show The Apprentice. He even chose “tycoon” as his secret service codename.
“Ultimately,” wrote the New York Times, “Trump has had more success playing a business mogul than he was one in real life.”
More than $ 300 million in loans for which he is personally responsible will mature in the next four years, according to the newspaper. “If he wins reelection, his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president.”
The identity of the lenders remains unknown, raising questions about who could influence Trump and whether he has conflicts of interest.
The president, the first since the 1970s to refuse to publish his tax returns, initially resorted to his instinctive cry of “totally fake news” when the story broke.
Monday followed with a series of tweets saying: “The fake news media, just like the 2016 election time, are exposing my taxes and all kinds of nonsense with information obtained illegally and only with bad intentions. . I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation and tax credits …
“….. Also, if you look at the extraordinary assets I own, which the Fake News does not have, I am very under-leveraged; I have very little debt compared to the value of the assets.”
The defense contained an apparent contradiction: that the tax returns were false and illegally obtained.
Then, in an attempt to deflect attention with a fabricated controversy, the president tweeted about the debate: “Joe Biden just announced that he will not accept a drug test. Wow, I wonder why “
There is no evidence that Biden is taking drugs.
Kate Bedingfield, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, has responded to such claims in unusually forceful terms, stating: “Vice President Biden intends to put the answers to his debates in words. If the president thinks your best case is based on urine, he can. We would expect no less from Donald Trump, who wasted the opportunity to protect the lives of 200,000 Americans when he did not make a plan to stop Covid-19. “
Despite the never-ending dramas of the campaign, Biden has maintained a remarkably consistent lead of around eight to 10 percentage points in most national polls. It has different advantages in the battlefield states. With some people already using early voting, the debate may not change many people’s minds.
It comes amid a coronavirus pandemic that has killed 200,000 Americans, ongoing protests against racial injustice and a new uproar over Trump’s refusal to commit to a peaceful transfer of power and the swift nomination of conservative Judge Amy Coney. Barrett to the Supreme Court to replace the deceased. Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
The measure garnered widespread approval from evangelical Christians and other conservatives. Barrett appears set to be confirmed by the Senate a week before Election Day despite fierce Democratic opposition. Yet Trump’s taxes appear to have changed the conversation on the night of the debate.
