I’m not watching the debate but this should be a solid body blow
More should be made of the DT’s muttered interjection while Hillary listed possible reasons he’s not releasing his returns. When she said “maybe it would show that he hasn’t paid anything in federal taxes” he says “Smart!”. Later, when he complains that federal tax dollars have been squandered, she says maybe part of the problem is that he (or maybe she said people like him) don’t pay any taxes. His response “I’m sure that would have been squandered too.” (emphasis mine). OK, so this is pretty clear. He is telling us it’s true, he hasn’t paid anything in taxes. And he’s proud of that - it makes him smart.
This is a direct line to his political jugular. All the “little people”? We pay our taxes. Pretty tough to get around it, and lots of us see it as both a civic duty and a moral obligation to society. Are we “stupid”? No, we’re ethical. And we’re carrying you and your “smart” rich buddies on our backs.
Please, Hillary, please don’t let this go. I liked your debate performance. I wish you had gone after him on this, but maybe you didn’t even hear him due to the interrupting nature of his comments. But it was crystal clear to those of us watching.
I also thought it a bit odd that Hill didn’t hit back with the point that peons, like myself, who pay our fair shre in taxes simply don’t get the tax breaks that the uber rich do. And to pay no taxes because one uses laws designed by lawmakers beholden to business people to benefit the rich may be smart, but it’s also despicable.
I didn’t watch the debate – did she state how many years of tax returns she and her husband have released? I’ve forgotten the number, but it is a lot.
I like how he admitted that on his tax returns that are public, he didn’t pay any taxes. He made some rambling soliloquy about how it’s all legal and he was really smart to get away with it. Makes you wonder if he had been paying his taxes all these years maybe the deficit would be significantly lower?
She said 30 years.
The full context of that “smart” line makes it worse for HO, actually (and I’m surprised we didn’t see an article on that exchange alone).
Hillary brought up a legal case from several years back, in which HO had to reveal a couple years of his tax returns during the proceedings, and they showed that he didn’t pay a dime in income taxes. And this is the point in which he interrupts with, “That makes me smart” (and she does later refer to him directly as not paying any taxes before he makes the “that would have been squandered too” line). Basically, he’s publicly boasting about the very thing that Romney was most afraid would be revealed.
As for Hillary not responding in real time: it was probably a combination of not hearing him in full (because he interrupted while she was talking; or she didn’t think she heard him correctly, because of his obliviousness to just how damning his statements were to himself) and the time limits for rebuttals (she was respecting the debate rules a far deal greater than HO was). But I’m sure there’s a great response to that yet to come.
Whether Hillary called him on it or not, the point was not wasted on those suburban white voters whom Trump needs but have evaded his grasp. There is such a thing as overkill.
I’m actually happy that she didn’t call him on everything he was saying tonight but instead allowed voters to come to their own conclusion most of the time. The impact is so much more telling when you reach it on your own.
I had missed the sequencing - you’re right, she was calling him on it at the next opportunity. I hope this shows up in a major ad buy.
Yeah, I see the point. She clearly knows what she’s doing, and I suspect everything that was going down was intentional on her part.