Business mogul Donald Trump defended his previous support for an excise tax on the wealthiest Americans and single-payer healthcare system by invoking the Gipper, pointing out that President Ronald Regan started out as a registered Democrat.
He “was on the liberal side of being a Democrat,” Trump told ABC “This Week” host George Stephanopoulos. “And he changed; and he did a very good job. And I worked with him. And he liked me a lot. … And he was a terrific guy, but he was a Democrat,” Trump said.
“And I have evolved … very strongly,” he continued. “And I’m a conservative and I have tremendous support, but I also have a lot of support among Democrats … I have support from all over the place.”
Trump said that in 1999 he was willing to have his income taxed one time at a rate of 14.25 percent to pay off the national debt.
“I was willing to do it,” he said. “I was wealthy even then. That was a long time ago, but I was willing to do it, and it was a suggestion. I would have loved to have seen the national debt be paid off.”
He used the same wealth defense in explaining his financial support for Democratic candidates.
“I have a net worth of over $10 billion,” Trump said. “I have been a world-class businessman, which is, by the way, what this country needs to make good trade deals instead of the way we’re being ripped off by China and Japan and Mexico and everybody else.
“I was a businessman … and I supported everybody because as a businessperson, you had to. And when I needed something, people were always there for me,” he said, doubling down on his claim in Thursday night’s GOP presidential debate that he essentially bribed politicians and had people such as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton essentially at his beck and call.
“If I supported somebody and three years later I needed something, they were always there for me,” he said. “But I would support a lot of people.”
He then repeated his claim that many of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s donors are allies who are trying to bribe Bush.
“And by the way, many of the people putting up that money are friends of mine,” he told Stephanopoulos. “These are not people that are putting it up because they like the color of his hair. These are people that are putting it up because they want something and they’re going to get something.”
Then Trump again invoked his fortune to explain that, although he has been a major political contributor, he is above financial quid pro quo politics because he can self-fund.
“I don’t want anybody’s money,” he said. “So I can actually straighten out the country without having … special interests and everything else come and say, ‘no, no, no, you can’t do that, because so and so supported you.'”
