华盛顿——令人震惊的爆料，总统唐纳德·特朗普只支付了750美元的联邦收入赋税他竞选公职的那一年，在许多其他地方根本没有缴纳所得税，这可能会削弱他在蓝领选民中的吸引力，并为他的民主党对手提供一个新的机会，乔·拜登，在第一次总统辩论前夕。
特朗普几十年来一直努力为自己树立一个非常成功的商人的形象——甚至选择“大亨”作为他的特勤局代号。但《纽约时报》周日披露，他在2016年(他赢得总统职位的那一年)和2017年(他上任的第一年)只缴纳了750美元的联邦所得税。据《泰晤士报》报道，在过去15年的10年里，他没有缴纳任何所得税，主要是因为他报告的损失超过了他的收入。该报获得了总统长期以来努力保密的价值数年的纳税申报数据。
这一事态发展对特朗普来说是一个特别不稳定的时刻，他的共和党竞选团队正在努力克服对总统处理疫情的批评。这为拜登在周二的辩论中提供了一条轻松的攻击线。由于一些州已经提前投票，距离选举日只有一个多月了，特朗普可能没有时间扭转他的竞选。
“唐纳德·特朗普需要这个选举共和党长期顾问亚历克斯·科南特说这将焦点直接放在特朗普的性格上，并将混乱带入竞选最重要的夜晚，即辩论。"
当然，特朗普一再面临——并幸存下来——毁灭性的转折，这种转折会使任何其他政治家陷入困境。其中最值得注意的是，2016年10月发布的令人震惊的“进入好莱坞”录像带，其中记录了特朗普在未经女性许可的情况下吹嘘亲吻和抚摸女性的情况。视频发布前两天，特朗普将在第二场辩论中面对当时的候选人希拉里·克林顿，这被认为是他当时竞选活动的丧钟。
白宫新闻秘书凯丽·麦克纳尼周一告诉《《福克斯和朋友们》》，民主党人正在重演“他们在2016年尝试过的同样的剧本——美国人民拒绝的同样的剧本，并将再次这样做。”
在竞选的这一点上，许多州已经在进行投票，很少有选民仍未决定，尚不清楚关于特朗普的任何新发现是否会有所不同。特朗普多年来的支持一直非常稳定，他任职期间的民调发现。
然而，税收指控是特朗普吸引力的核心，尤其是在宾夕法尼亚州、威斯康星州和密歇根州等州的蓝领选民中，正是这些选民推动他在2016年当选总统。根据皮尤研究中心(Pew Research Center)的分析，特朗普得到了约三分之二没有大学学位的白人选民的支持，而非白人非大学毕业生中只有约十分之二的人支持特朗普。
事实上，在2016年2月的盖洛普民意调查中，希望看到特朗普赢得党内提名的共和党人将他作为商人的经历列为他们支持他的第二重要原因，仅次于他作为非政治人士和局外人的地位。
甚至在今天，当被要求解释他们对特朗普的支持时，选民们经常指出他在商业上的成功是他敏锐的证据。他们经常重复他的谈话要点，即他放弃了很多去担任总统，引用他的牺牲作为证据，证明他竞选这份工作不是出于自身利益，而是因为他关心改善像他们这样的人的生活。
但一个人乘坐私人飞机从一处豪华房产飞到另一处豪华房产，支付的税款比数百万生活方式更加简朴的美国人少，这一形象可能会引发类似2012年共和党提名人米特·罗姆尼(Mitt Romney)面临的反弹，他在一次闭门筹款活动中被秘密记录在案，称47%不缴纳所得税的美国人“依赖政府”，永远不会投票给他。
你的工作不是担心那些人。我永远不会说服他们应该承担个人责任，关心自己的生活，”罗姆尼说。
根据国税局的数据，大约一半的美国人不缴纳联邦所得税，但2017年缴纳的平均所得税接近12，200美元。
民主党人没有浪费时间抓住这个消息，拜登竞选团队的网上商店已经在周日晚上出售贴纸，上面写着“我缴纳的所得税比唐纳德·特朗普多”。
参议院民主党领袖查克·舒默(Chuck Schumer)在推特上发了一条表情符号，呼吁追随者举起双手，“如果你缴纳的联邦所得税超过特朗普总统。”
“这就是为什么他隐藏了他的纳税申报单。因为一直以来，他都没有缴税。但你是，”康涅狄格州参议员克里斯·墨菲补充道。
马萨诸塞州民主党众议员理查德·尼尔。众议院筹款委员会(House Ways and Means Committee)主席唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump)表示，新报告凸显了众议院民主党针对特朗普政府的诉讼对获取特朗普纳税申报表的重要性。
他在一份声明中说:“这份报告清楚地表明，与普通美国纳税人相比，有权力和影响力的人在与国税局互动时有着截然不同的体验。”。
除了特朗普年度付款的消息之外，《纽约时报》还发现，他的许多最著名的企业，包括他的高尔夫球场，都报告了巨额亏损，而且，由于他面临着一场艰难的连任之战，由于“他个人担保的数亿美元债务即将到期”，他的财务特别紧张。《泰晤士报》透露，特朗普还因7290万美元的退税受到审计，如果国税局对他不利，他可能会损失1亿多美元。
这一事态发展发生在拜登最近加大努力将特朗普描绘成一个向工人阶级支持者撒谎的江湖骗子之后。相比之下，拜登试图突出自己的中产阶级教养。
这选举拜登曾说，这是“斯克兰顿对公园大道”，拜登儿时的家乡宾夕法尼亚州与曼哈顿形成鲜明对比，特朗普在曼哈顿建立了自己的品牌帝国和真人秀事业。
“这显然与拜登开创的对比形成了鲜明的对比，”乔·特里皮说，他是民主党多场总统竞选的资深战略家。
特里皮说，进入辩论后，拜登现在有了具体的东西可以指出，因为他试图改变仍未决定的选民的微弱优势。
特里皮说:“你让工人阶级选民感动了几分，你在谈论拜登在俄亥俄州等地获胜。”
参与佛罗里达州参议员马尔科·卢比奥2016年总统竞选的柯南特指出，当卢比奥在初选辩论中指控特朗普如果没有从父亲弗雷德那里继承数千万美元，“将在曼哈顿卖手表”时，特朗普变得多么防御性。
特朗普在空中竖起食指，大喊“不，不，不，不”，试图打断鲁比奥，坚持说他是借钱。“这是非常错误的，”他说。
“只要这场竞选是关于特朗普的，”柯南特说，“他就会输。”
Trump's tax revelation could tarnish image that fueled rise
WASHINGTON -- The bombshell revelations that PresidentDonald Trumppaid just $750 in federal incometaxesthe year he ran for office and paid no income taxes at all in many others threaten to undercut a pillar of his appeal among blue-collar voters and provide a new opening for his Democratic rival,Joe Biden, on the eve of the first presidential debate.
Trump has worked for decades to build an image of himself as a hugely successful businessman — even choosing “mogul” as his Secret Service code name. But The New York Times on Sunday revealed that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016, the year he won the presidency, and in 2017, his first year in office. He paid no income taxes whatsoever in 10 of the previous 15 years, largely because he reported losing more money than he made, according to the Times, which obtained years’ worth of tax return data that the president had long fought to keep private.
The development comes at a particularly precarious moment for Trump, whose Republican campaign is struggling to overcome criticism of the president’s handling of the pandemic. It hands Biden an easy attack line heading into Tuesday’s debate. And with early voting already happening in some states and Election Day just over a month away, Trump may be running out of time to turn his campaign around.
“Donald Trump needs thiselectionto be about Joe Biden as a choice,” said longtime GOP consultant Alex Conant. “This keeps the focus squarely on Trump’s character and the chaos going into the most important night of the campaign, the debate.”
Of course, Trump has repeatedly faced — and survived — devastating turns that would have sunk any other politician. That includes, most notably, the stunning “Access Hollywood” tape released in October 2016, in which Trump was recorded bragging about kissing and groping women without their permission. The video’s release came just two days before Trump was set to face then-candidate Hillary Clinton in their second debate and was considered a death knell to his campaign at the time.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany told “Fox & Friends” on Monday that Democrats are replaying “the same playbook they tried in 2016 — the same playbook that the American people rejected and will do so again.”
At this point in the race, with voting already underway in many states and so few voters still undecided, it is unclear whether any new discoveries about Trump would make any difference. Trump’s support over the years has remained remarkably consistent, polls over the course of his presidency have found.
Yet the tax allegations go to the very heart of Trump’s appeal, especially among the blue-collar voters in states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan who propelled him to the presidency in 2016. Trump was supported by about two-thirds of white voters without college degrees, according to an analysis by the Pew Research Center, versus only about 2 in 10 nonwhite noncollege graduates.
Indeed, in a Gallup poll from February 2016, Republicans who wanted to see Trump win their party’s nomination cited his experience as a businessman as the second-most important reason they backed him, surpassed only by his status as a nonpolitician and an outsider.
Even today, when asked to explain their support for Trump, voters often point to his success in business as evidence of his acumen. And they often repeat his talking point that he gave up a great deal to serve as president, citing his sacrifice as evidence that he ran for the job not out of self-interest, but because he cares about improving the lives of people like them.
But the image of a man flying around in private jets from one luxury property to another and paying less in taxes than millions of Americans with far more modest lifestyles could prompt a backlash similar to the one 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney faced after he was secretly recorded at a closed-door fundraiser saying that the 47% of Americans who don’t pay income taxes were “dependent upon government” and would never vote for him.
″(M)y job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” Romney said.
Roughly half of Americans pay no federal income taxes, but the average income tax paid in 2017 was nearly $12,200, according to the IRS.
Democrats wasted no time in seizing on the news, with the Biden campaign’s online store already selling stickers saying “I paid more income taxes than Donald Trump” on Sunday night.
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer tweeted an emoji calling on followers to raise their hands “if you paid more in federal income tax than President Trump.”
“That’s why he hid his tax returns. Because the whole time, he wasn’t paying taxes. But you were,” added Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn.
And Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, said the new report highlights the importance of the House Democratic lawsuit against the Trump administration to access Trump’s tax returns.
“This reporting shines a stark light on the vastly different experience people with power and influence have when interacting with the Internal Revenue Service than the average American taxpayer does,” he said in a statement.
In addition to the news about Trump’s annual payments, the Times found that many of his best-known businesses, including his golf courses, reported huge losses, and that, as he faces an uphill battle for reelection, his finances are under particular stress thanks to “hundreds of millions of dollars in debt coming due that he has personally guaranteed.” Trump is also under audit over a $72.9 million tax refund that could cost him more than $100 million if the IRS rules against him, the Times revealed.
The development comes after Biden recently stepped up his efforts to paint Trump as a charlatan who has lied to his working-class supporters. In contrast, Biden has tried to highlight his own middle-class upbringing.
Theelection, Biden has said, is “Scranton vs. Park Avenue,” pitting Biden’s boyhood hometown in Pennsylvania against Manhattan, where Trump built his branding empire and reality television career.
“This clearly plays straight into that contrast that Biden has opened up,” said Joe Trippi, a veteran strategist of multiple Democratic presidential campaigns.
Trippi said coming into the debate, Biden now has something he can concretely point to as he tries to sway the slim margin of voters who remain undecided.
“You move a few points of working class voters, and you’re talking about Biden winning in places like Ohio,” Trippi said.
Conant, who worked on Florida Sen. Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign, noted how defensive Trump became when Rubio, during a primary debate, charged that Trump “would be selling watches in Manhattan” had he not inherited tens of millions of dollars from his father, Fred.
Trump raised an index finger in the air, yelling, “No, no, no, no,” as he sought to interrupt Rubio and insisted that he had instead borrowed money. “That is so wrong,” he said.
“So long as this campaign is all about Trump,” Conant said, “he’s going to lose.”
