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Joe Biden released his 2019 tax returns Tuesday hours before the first presidential debate, in an attempt to draw attention to the fact that Donald Trump has paid very little in federal income taxes over the past two decades.
As the candidates prepared to debate in Cleveland, Ohio, Biden revealed that he and his wife paid nearly $ 300,000 in federal taxes in 2019. Kamala Harris, his running mate, also released her statements, which showed that she and her husband had paid more. of $ 1.1 million in taxes for the same year.
Trump faces intense scrutiny over the revelation that he paid $ 750 in federal taxes in the year he won the election and the same amount in his first year in office. The New York Times, which obtained his statements, reported that he had not paid any federal income tax in 11 of the 18 years they had examined.
Chris Wallace, the Fox News anchor who will moderate the debate, is expected to ask Trump about his refusal to release his tax returns, breaking a tradition that dates back to Richard Nixon.
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In a debate with Hillary Clinton, his Democratic rival in 2016, Trump joked that he was “smart” after she suggested he was refusing to release his statements because it would show he was not paying taxes.
The first of the three presidential debates comes with just five weeks to go. Biden leads Trump by nearly 7 points in national polls, according to a Financial Times analysis of the average from RealClearPolitics. Biden also leads in all the changing states, except Iowa, where the candidates are side by side.
Trump has a slight advantage in Georgia, which has not voted for a Democrat since Bill Clinton in 1992, and his advantage in Texas, which has not voted for the Democratic candidate since Jimmy Carter in 1976, is just under four points.
Topics for discussion are expected to include the coronavirus pandemic, the Supreme Court vacancy following the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the economy, racial justice and protests against racism.
Wallace is also expected to ask about the integrity of the US electoral process. Trump has been criticized for refusing to say he would commit to a “peaceful transition of power” if he loses the election.
In the weeks leading up to the debate, Trump, 74, has tried to paint his 77-year-old rival as an incoherent man who has lost his mental sharpness. He claimed, without testing, that Biden takes drugs to enhance his public performances and suggested that both men take drug tests.
Biden is expected to defend that Trump is incapable of handling the Covid-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 200,000 American lives.
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