Yesterday, the New York Times dropped a bombshell story about Trump’s tax returns, revealing that the billionaire rarely paid any federal income tax over the last 15 years, and when he did, he usually only paid $750 a year. This report has only rekindled the notion that Trump is either cheating on his taxes or taking advantage of an American tax system that grossly benefits the uber wealthy.
Santorum, ever the Trump defender, went on CNN’s New Day morning show today and implied that the NYT report was fabricated. (The report detailed tax documents leaked to the Times).
“The New York Times refuses to share the information with Trump. They’re refusing to show that they, in fact, have those documents. The Trump campaign …” said Santorum, before he was interrupted by New Day anchor Alisyn Camerota.
Camerota then asked Santorum, “So are you … are you doubting whether the New York Times is really reporting on this? Is that what you’re saying?”
Santorum replied, “I’m not sure you want to go there with the New York Times,” and then went on to complain about the Russia investigation and something to do with the FBI.
Earlier in the conversation, before denying the report entirely, Santorum defended Trump, but also sort of insulted him, by saying that Trump shouldn’t be paying taxes if he is losing money.Trump is “going to do everything he can not to pay taxes,” says former US Sen. Rick Santorum, adding that it’s OK “if he structures it according to the law. The question is, is he doing anything illegal? And I don’t think there’s any claim of that.”https://t.co/DSvqh1Lx2n pic.twitter.com/sMDBbc2VvR
— New Day (@NewDay) September 28, 2020
“You can’t complain that he’s not paying any taxes and then criticize him … if he’s losing money, he’s not going to be paying taxes.”
Reporting from the Washington Post has detailed that Trump’s time in office has actually been quite lucrative for his business enterprises. Even so, as NYT reports, Trump only paid $750 in federal income tax in 2017, the first year of his presidency.
Trump, a self-proclaimed billionaire, is likely paying much less in federal income tax than the average middle-class American. According to the Congressional Budget Office, households in the middle 20% of the U.S. income distribution paid an average of $2,200 in federal income taxes in 2016.
Saying wrong and dumb things is not a new phenomenon for Santorum, who served two terms as Pennsylvania’s Senator before losing re-election to Bob Casey by the largest margin of defeat for an incumbent senator since 1980.
His fear mongering over gay marriage led him to compare homosexuality to beastiality. The remarks led to an internet campaign to define the word "santorum" as the “frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the by-product of anal sex.”
Last year, the Pittsburgh-area native said law-abiding citizens with guns help to deter mass shootings and claimed that laws that restrict gun use actually put citizens at higher risk. Both of these claims are specious, to say the least.
Only 8% of active shooter incidents from 2016-2017 were successfully stopped by another legal shooter, the same number of shootings in which a civilian without firearms successfully stopped the shooter.
