Trump Blasts Bombshell Report On His $750 U.S. Tax Bills As 'Fake News'
President Donald Trump slammed The New York Times’ shocking report Sunday that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in both 2016 and 2017 as “fake news.”
“It’s fake news, totally fake news, made up,” he said at a White House news conference when asked about the detailed investigative report on his tax records.
The self-proclaimed billionaire reportedly paid little or nothing in taxes, citing massive business losses, but Trump nevertheless complained that the Internal Revenue Service did “not treat me well. … They treat me very badly.”
Trump said that “basically” the Times story was “saying I paid nothing,” which he denied. “First of all, I paid a lot, and I paid a lot of state income taxes, too. ... It’ll all be revealed. It’s going to come out — but after the auditors.”
Listen to this pathetically weak pushback on the New York Times report about his tax returns. Trump is a con man. pic.twitter.com/be15BS005Z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2020
The Times reported that it obtained several years of Trump’s tax information before 2018. In 10 of 15 years before his election in 2016, Trump didn’t pay a penny in federal income taxes, according to the newspaper. It characterized his financial history as years of “chronic” business losses and “tax avoidance.”
Before Trump’s news conference began, he appeared to be caught on a hot mike saying, “Ah, shit.”
Somebody on a hot mic on the Fox News broadcast says "ah, shit" as Trump's press conference begins pic.twitter.com/aqXcU3al11
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 27, 2020
The Times didn’t immediately directly comment on Trump’s “fake news” accusation. But Executive Editor Dean Baquet posted on Twitter that the newspaper reported Trump’s tax information “because we believe citizens should understand as much as possible about their leaders.”