While I was driving home after a meeting Monday night and listening to the Trump-Clinton debate, I heard Donald Trump say that his not paying taxes — according to the couple of tax returns he released many years ago — was “smart.”
Later this evening, after the debate, I saw a reporter from CNN, Dana Bash, ask Trump about his comment that not paying taxes was “smart.” Responding to Bash, he denied saying that.
But I clearly heard him say that. And so did Bash; otherwise she wouldn’t have asked him about it.
I find it pretty offensive that Donald Trump said not paying taxes was “smart,” since he drives on public roads and receives many other benefits that are provided by and paid for by taxpayers.
For the last several decades, all candidates for president have released their tax returns, but Donald Trump refuses to do so.
Obviously, the reason he hasn’t released his tax returns has nothing to do with his being under audit, since leaders of the IRS have explained that he’s perfectly able to release his tax returns, even though his tax returns for the last three years may currently be under audit. He hasn’t released his tax returns because there’s very damaging information contained in those tax returns. If there wasn’t information harmful to Trump contained in those tax returns, he would release them in a New York minute.
I was also surprised by the fact that a Republican strategist, Steve Schmidt, who works for one of the largest public relations and communications firms in the world, and is a commentator for MSNBC, during post-debate discussion used the words “incoherent” and “exhaustion” to describe Donald Trump during the debate Monday.
Since Schmidt, who is a paid strategist for Trump’s political party, and who logically should be saying really nice things about him, instead called him incoherent, one can reasonably conclude that Trump didn’t do well.