Trump surrogates Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani offered a similar defense of their candidate Sunday, calling him a “genius” and emphasizing that his not paying taxes was lawful, in the wake of a New York Times report that said the businessman could have avoided paying income taxes for years.
“He’s a genius,” Giuliani said on ABC’s This Week. “Absolute genius.”
“We’re talking about 26 years ago. Perfectly legal,” he continued. “He would’ve been a fool not to take advantage of [the tax code].”
“He’s a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow.”
The former New York City mayor said the same thing on CNN’s State of the Union.
Meanwhile, Christie echoed that defense on Fox News Sunday.
“The genius of Donald Trump has been to make sure that he follows the law, which is exactly what he’s done,” he said.
“This is actually a very, very good story for Donald Trump,” Christie continued. “Mr. Trump has paid millions and millions and millions of dollars in taxes, state and local taxes, property taxes, and federal income taxes over time.”
According to tax forms obtained by the Times, the businessman declared a $916 million loss in 1995, which tax experts suspected Trump could have used to avoid paying federal income taxes for nearly two decades.
His campaign responded to the report with a defense of Trump’s business savvy and claimed that he had “paid hundreds of millions of dollars in property taxes, sales and excise taxes, real estate taxes, city taxes, state taxes, employee taxes and federal taxes.”
“Mr. Trump knows the tax code far better than anyone who has ever run for President and he is the only one that knows how to fix it,” the statement said.
The businessman has long been resistant to releasing his tax returns, claiming that they are under “routine audit” by the IRS.
