Donald Trump showed that he “embodies” the rigged system he often rails against by possibly avoiding paying income taxes for nearly two decades, Hillary Clinton’s campaign chief argued on Sunday.
“We talk about the rigged system out there – Donald Trump embodies that,” Robby Mook told NBC News’ Chuck Todd. “The idea that he didn’t have to pay taxes for 20 years, or at least that’s what the New York Times is telling us … we feel very good about where we are.”
The Republican presidential nominee declared a $916 million loss on his tax returns in 1995, which were published late Saturday night by the New York Times. Trump has refused to release his tax returns because he says they are under audit by the IRS, and an attorney for the billionaire threatened to pursue ” appropriate legal action” against the Times for publishing the tax documents without authorization.
“You know, Trump has had a really bad week,” Mook said. “He failed in the debate. He has spun out of control. Subsequent to that, [he was] insulting [former Miss Universe] Alicia Machado.”
“His campaign’s just spinning out [and] they’re grasping for anything that they can to throw mud back,” he added, noting that Trump is “now having to defend the fact that he may not have paid taxes for 20 years, which is something most Americans don’t have the option to do.”
The Trump campaign has defended the candidate as a “highly-skilled businessman who has a fiduciary responsibility to his business, his family and his employees to pay no more tax than legally required.”
“Mr. Trump has 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, along with very substantial charitable contributions,” campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement on Saturday. “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.”
