Instead of being rattled by the bombshell report that Donald Trump could have avoided paying taxes for 18 years with the help of his enormous business loss of $916 million back in 1995, two of his top supporters have sought to hail him as a “genius” for using the existing tax laws to his advantage.
“He’s a genius at how to take advantage of legal remedies that can help your company survive and grow,” former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on ABC News. “No apologies for complying with the law,” New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said on Fox News, dubbing The New York Times piece a “very, very good story” for the Republican presidential nominee.
Trying to ward off the attacks by the Hillary Clinton campaign, Trump himself tweeted: “I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them.”
Clinton spokesman Brian Fallon commented that the massive tax write-off only showed the colossal scale of Trump’s past business failures and the fact that the billionaire businessman operated under a different set of rules than ordinary taxpayers.
Senator Bernie Sanders, who lost out to Clinton in his bid to become the Democratic nominee and is now campaigning for her, said it is the manipulation of the tax system by wealthy people like Trump that has made millions of middle-class Americans frustrated, angry and disgusted.
The Trump tax avoidance issue and his continued refusal to release his returns are set to figure prominently at the second presidential debate on October 9. Before that, it may very well come up at Tuesday’s vice-presidential debate between Trump’s running mate Mike Pence and Clinton’s running mate Tim Kaine.
While the Trump campaign may have been expected to go into a damage control mode, Giuliani and Christie sought to turn The New York Times report on its head by showering praise on Trump’s business acumen and deep knowledge of the tax system.
“There’s no one who has shown more genius in their way to manoeuvre about the tax code as he rightfully used the laws to do that,” Christie said, while Giuliani asserted that by taking advantage of the available tax code provisions, Trump has been able to preserve his enterprise and build it.
The former New York Mayor even went on to compare Trump’s ability to come back from a situation to the turnarounds that Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill brought about when up against all odds.
But another prominent Republican who has served in the administrations of the last three Republican presidents had something totally different to say about Trump and the latest revelation. “What we’re seeing is somebody who’s blowing himself apart in real time,” said Peter Wehner, adding: “It’s a pretty extraordinary thing to see. It’s a political death wish, as if at some deep level he doesn’t want to be president.”