Donald Trump made a big admission during Monday night's presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, an admission he tried to take back just an hour later on his way to the spin room. He admitted that he doesn't pay taxes.
Moderator Lester Holt asked Trump whether and when he was going to release his taxes, saying, "Don't Americans have a right to know if there are any conflicts of interest?" That led to Trump's long song and dance about how he's under audit and he'll do it when the audit is complete and he'll do it if she releases her emails. Which was kind of dumb, because that—of course—gave Clinton an opening. Which she took, speculating on "why won't he release his tax returns?" The first reason, she wondered is if “maybe he's not as rich as he says he is." Then, "Second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be." Then she got him:
CLINTON: Third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to Wall Street and foreign banks. Or maybe he doesn't want the American people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax.
TRUMP: That makes me smart.
Oops. That sure looks like an admission that the reason he's not released his tax returns is because he's not paying any taxes. He's bragging about it, in fact. Which he realized just a little too late, when he told CNN's Dana Bash, just an hour later as he was walking off the debate stage, "No, I didn't say that at all."
Now, that might work in Donald's head, that he can unsay the stupid things that he admits to. But it doesn't work that way outside his private reality. But we all got a better insight into just why it is he's the only modern presidential candidate to refuse to come clean on his taxes.
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