Donald Trump Faces Backlash For Past Tweets, Including One Attacking Barack Obama’s Taxes
After The New York Times published a report that claimed President Donald Trump hasn’t paid taxes in 10 out of 15 years because of debt, some of his tweets have come under renewed scrutiny.
One of those tweets from 2012, as The Independent reported, showed him slamming former President Barack Obama for paying 20.5 percent in taxes while earning $790,000, which would normally put him in a higher bracket.
“@BarackObama who wants to raise all our taxes,” he wrote, “only pays 20.5% on $790k salary. Do as I say not as I do.”
The news outlet noted that while Obama would typically be expected to pay a higher rate, he had made thousands of dollars of donations to charity, which tends to lower tax responsibility.
Critics were quick to jump on the eight-year-old tweet with renewed backlash.
“Corruption and incomprehensible debt. I guess that means you made good on one campaign promise: To run the government like you run your businesses. I have some money here that I could contribute to help pay off your debts. Let me know where to send it,” tweeted one user, with an image that appears to be fake money from a Trump-branded game.
Meanwhile, as The Inquisitr previously reported, Trump appears to have a different financial situation than he has claimed, with hundreds of millions of dollars in money owed to lenders. These losses have reportedly helped him avoid paying taxes for a majority of the past few decades. Allegedly, his bill was only about $750 each in 2016 and 2017.
Another 2012 tweet written by Trump showed him attacking the half of Americans who don’t pay federal taxes, linking to a Daily Mail story discussing federal debt.
Some Twitter users used the old message as a way to affirm why they would be voting for Trump’s opponent, Joe Biden, in the upcoming November election.
“The Bidens paid about $3.7 million and $1.5 in taxes for 2017 and 2018, respectively — about a third of their adjusted gross income. They gave roughly $1 million and $275,000 to charity in 2017 and 2018, respectively,” tweeted one user.
The Biden campaign was also quick to respond to the report about Trump’s taxes with a campaign ad showing various people with middle-class jobs and their federal tax bill.
Teachers paid $7,239
Firefighters paid $5,283
Nurses paid $10,216Donald Trump paid $750 pic.twitter.com/5YE1cbYsBN
— Team Joe (Text JOE to 30330) (@TeamJoe) September 28, 2020
Another tweet from 2015 featured Trump next to a stack of papers that he said were his tax returns. He later refused to make his returns public while running for office, claiming that he was under audit by the IRS, though as The Independent wrote, it isn’t clear why that would make it impossible for him to do so.
