而总统唐纳德·特朗普对于《纽约时报》爆炸性的报道，奥巴马的最初反应是，他很少甚至没有支付联邦收入赋税近20年来，他一直认为这是“完全虚假的消息”，他的辩护后来演变成了对避税行为的辩护。
在周一上午的一系列推特上，总统抨击《纽约时报》“提出了我的税收&所有其他带有非法获取信息的胡说八道”，并辩称他“有权”获得他声称的东西。
特朗普在推特上写道:“我缴纳了数百万美元的税款，但像其他人一样，有权享受折旧和税收抵免。”他为自己缴纳了多少税款进行了辩护，但没有直接质疑《纽约时报》提出的具体数字。
但他没有回答记者周一下午在玫瑰园活动中提出的问题。
该报否认特朗普的税务信息是非法获得的。美国广播公司新闻没有独立核实时报的账户。
2020年9月28日，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在白宫玫瑰园就新冠肺炎测试发表讲话。
在周日发表的一篇报道中，该报据报告的总统在当选的那年只缴纳了750美元的联邦所得税，在他执政的第一年也缴纳了同样的数额。《纽约时报》还发现，在他们调查的18年信息中，有11年他根本没有缴纳联邦所得税。
特朗普是现代史上唯一一位不公布纳税申报单的总统，他可以通过自愿公布信息一劳永逸地解决关于他的税收的挥之不去的问题。但特朗普声称，正在进行的审计阻止了他这样做。
《泰晤士报》的报告发现，尽管审计阻止总统发布信息是不真实的，就连他自己的国税局局长也证实了这一点，但事实是，总统正在为7290万美元的退税进行长达十年的审计战。
除了《纽约时报》错综复杂的报道之外，这个故事描绘了一位总统的毁灭性画像，他以富有和成功商人的形象当选，但他的记录讲述了一个负债累累、苦苦挣扎的商业帝国捉襟见肘的故事。
在总统对该报告进行不断演变的辩护之前，他的儿子兼商业伙伴小唐纳德·特朗普(Donald Trump Jr .)出现在“福克斯与朋友”(Fox and Friends)节目中，特朗普同样抨击了该报告，但没有对其关键主张提出质疑，并为总统利用策略降低税收法案进行辩护。
“太可笑了。我父亲已经缴纳了数千万美元的税款，如果他做了一些事情，你可以得到折旧，你可以得到历史注销，就像我们在华盛顿特区承担建设旧邮局的风险时所做的那样。这是一个完美的例子，”这位年轻的特朗普说，他引用了他家在宾夕法尼亚大道一处政府租赁物业内的豪华酒店。
他没有否认《纽约时报》的报道，而是批评该报对总统的总体纳税情况提供了“选择性的画面”，并暗示他们有动机在周二晚上的第一次总统辩论之前这样做。
“当然，《纽约时报》这样做了，他们在辩论前一天发布了所有这些事情的选择性图片，试图给乔·拜登这样的人一个攻击线，他们想出了一两个朗朗上口的原声，这就是游戏，”他补充说。
2020年9月27日，华盛顿，美国总统唐纳德·特朗普在白宫詹姆斯·布雷迪简报室举行的新闻发布会上向记者发表讲话。
除了总统和他儿子的直接评论之外，总统的团队还采取了一种方法来为总统辩护，这种方法从直接否认到证明避税行为是正当的，再到提出“协调一致的政治诽谤”。
白宫新闻秘书凯丽·麦克纳尼(Kayleigh McEnany)表示，就在总统周二晚上与乔·拜登(Joe Biden)的第一场辩论前夕，该报告的发布时间令人怀疑，而副新闻秘书布莱恩·摩根斯坦(Brian Morgenstern)则更进一步，毫无根据地指责《纽约时报》和民主党人“可能是一场协调一致的政治诽谤”。
“民主党在广告发布后几分钟内就登上了广告，这意味着这可能是一场有组织的政治诽谤，但总统已经缴纳了很多税，但问题是，为什么有人会支付比他们所欠的更多的税?他希望每个人都有低税收，”摩根斯坦说。
他对《纽约时报》没有展示构成其报道基础的文件表示异议，以便这些文件“可以得到核实和争议”，这一论点没有提到这样一个事实，即如果总统愿意公布他的税收信息，他自己有权这样做。
摩根斯坦说:“纽约时报使用的文件他们甚至不会给任何人看，所以他们可以被核实和争议。”他引用了总统和他的律师以前在反驳该报告时的否认。
摩根斯坦进一步回应了总统的辩护，即他在近四年的任期内捐赠了总统工资，以证明他对政府的慷慨，尽管这种捐赠并不能补偿税款。
“总统的律师声称他交了几千万美元的税。我们知道这个。我们知道他把工资捐给了政府，即使他不必这么做。摩根斯坦说:“这是他不必支付的150万美元的税款，但这是四年前辩论前夕的另一个版本，与民主党人协调，是一个政治打击。”
但与此同时，特朗普团队一直试图声称《纽约时报》的报道充满不准确之处，并为总统的形象辩护，没有迹象表明总统和他的团队更接近于采取措施，通过公布总统的税收信息一劳永逸地解决问题。
Trump, White House blend denials, justifications in reaction to New York Times story on his taxes
While PresidentDonald Trump's initial reaction to the New York Times' bombshell report that he paid little to no federal incometaxesover nearly two decades was to dismiss it outright as "totally fake news," his defense has since evolved into defense of tax-avoidance practices.
In a series of tweets Monday morning, the president attacked the Times for "bringing up my Taxes & all sorts of other nonsense with illegally obtained information" and argued he was "entitled" to what he claimed.
"I paid many millions of dollars in taxes but was entitled, like everyone else, to depreciation & tax credits," Trump tweeted, defending how much he has paid in taxes without directly challenging the specific numbers raised by the Times.
But he did not answer reporters' shouted questions at a Rose Garden event Monday afternoon.
The paper denies Trump's tax information was obtained illegally. ABC News has not independently verified the Times' account.
President Donald Trump speaks on COVID-19 testing in the Rose Garden of the White House, Sept. 28, 2020.
In a story published Sunday, the newspaperreportedthat the president paid just $750 in federal income tax the year he was elected and that same amount during his first year in office. The Times also found that he paid no federal income tax at all in 11 of the 18 years of information they examined.
Trump is the only president in modern history not to release his tax returns and could resolve the lingering questions about his taxes once and for all by simply releasing the information voluntarily. But instead, Trump has claimed that an ongoing audit prevents him from doing so.
While it's not true that an audit prevents the president from releasing the information, as even his own IRS commissioner has confirmed, it is the case that the president is undergoing a decade-long audit battle over a $72.9 million tax refund, the Times report found.
Beyond the intricacies of the Times' reporting, the story paints a damning portrait of a president who was elected on his image as a wealthy and successful businessman but whose records tell a story of a deeply indebted and struggling business empire stretched beyond its means.
The president's evolving defense to the report followed a "Fox and Friends" appearance by his son and business partner Donald Trump Jr., who similarly attacked the report without disputing its key claims and defended the use of maneuvers by the president to lower his tax bill.
"It's ridiculous. My father has paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes, if he does things where you get depreciation, where you get historical write-offs like we did when we took on the risk of building the Old Post Office in D.C. It's the perfect example," the junior Trump said, citing his family's luxury hotel inside a leased government property on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Short of a denial of the Times reporting, he instead criticized the paper for offering a "selective picture" of the president's overall tax payments and suggested they were motivated to do so ahead of Tuesday night's first presidential debate.
"Of course, The New York Times does this, they put out a selective picture of all of these things a day before the debate to try to give someone like Joe Biden an attack line, they come up with one or two catchy soundbites and that's the game," he added.
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President Donald Trump speaks to reporters during a news conference inside the James S. Brady Briefing Room at the White House, Sept. 27, 2020, in Washington.
Beyond the commentary directly from the president and his son, the president's team has also moved to build the president's defense in an approach that has run the spectrum from outright denials to justifying the practice of tax avoidance to the suggestion of a "coordinated political smear."
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said the timing of the report's release just ahead of the president's first debate matchup against Joe Biden Tuesday night was suspect, while deputy press secretary Brian Morgenstern went further in making a baseless allegation that it was "probably a coordinated political smear" on the part of the Times and Democrats.
"The Democrats had ads up and running within minutes of this coming out which means that it's probably a coordinated political smear but the president has paid lots of taxes but the point is that why would anybody pay more than they owe? He wants everybody to have low taxes," Morgenstern said.
He took issue with the Times not showing the documents that form the basis of their reporting so they "could be verified and disputed," an argument that left unmentioned the fact that the president has the power to do so himself if he would release his tax information.
"The documents the New York Times used they wouldn't even show them to anybody so they could be verified and disputed," said Morgenstern, who has cited the previous denials by the president and his attorney in pushing back against the report.
Morgenstern further echoed the president's defense that he has donated his presidential salary over his nearly four years in office as evidence of generosity toward the government, even though such donations do not compensate for tax payments.
"The president's attorney stated he paid tens of millions of dollars in taxes. We know this. We know he donates his salary to the government even when he doesn't have to. That's a million and a half dollars in taxes he didn't have to pay, but this is a story that is another version of it from four years ago on the eve of the debate, coordinated with the Democrats as a political hit," Morgenstern said.
But all the while, as the Trump team has sought to claim the Times story is riddled with inaccuracies and defended the president's image, there is little indication that the president and his team are any closer to taking the step that would resolve the matter once and for all by releasing the president's tax information.
