Donald Trump-supporting Sean Hannity unsurprisingly defended the president after a New York Times’ exposé on Trump’s questionable claims to avoid paying federal income taxes.
But he did it by attacking the messenger.
“Let’s see their taxes,” the Fox News personality said of the Times, a publicly traded company, on his radio show Monday. (Hear the audio below.)
The Times report said the president paid $750 in federal income taxes the year he ran for president and in his first year in the White House. He paid nothing in 10 of the past 15 years, using an array of suspicious claims to reduce his taxable income.
The report punctures Trump’s boasts of business triumph, revealing hundreds of millions in debts that could pose a “national security” issue, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said.
But Hannity dismissed the claims by barking back at the Times and saying the report is “not the bombshell” because the newspaper reported the “exact same story” four years ago. That story focused on pages from Trump’s 1995 tax return in which he declared a $916 million loss. The latest report is based on two decades of Trump’s tax records.
“They won’t give you their sourcing, and they’re admitting in the article they don’t have all of the information and that the president used legitimate tax deductions on his tax return,” Hannity said. “That by the way, that is all legal. If you don’t like the system, ask yourself, does The New York Times do it? Have they written things off? Let’s see their taxes.”
Corporate tax returns, like individual returns, are not public. Nevertheless, publicly traded companies like The New York Times Co. file quarterly earnings reports that disclose vast amounts of financial data.
Listen to the audio here:
H/T Media Matters