let's start with the report from the new
york times which says president trump
who's a billionaire paid
less income tax than teachers
firefighters and nurses
in the year he won the presidency as
well as in his first year in office
the newspaper says it obtained tax
records for mr trump and his companies
over two decades
and he paid just 750 in federal income
taxes in 2016
and 2017. it also says that president
trump
paid no income tax at all in 10 of the
previous 15 years
the times also takes aim at president
trump's wealth in a public filing mr
trump said he made
at least 400 million dollars in 2018.
the newspaper challenges this saying
that his tax returns show the president
actually made a loss
of more than 40 million mr trump has
dismissed the report as fake
news our north america correspondent
peter bose reports
[Music]
once again donald trump and his tax
returns the story that's dogged the
president ever since he announced he was
running for office
and long before as a businessman now the
new york
times says it's obtained tax return data
for mr trump
dating back more than two decades along
with the hundreds of companies that make
up his business organization
and detailed information from his first
two years in the white house
the paper says the data shows his
finances are under stress
beset by losses with struggling
properties and hundreds of millions of
dollars
in debt it reports that mr trump paid
only
750 dollars in federal income taxes
in the year he won the presidency and
another 750
during his first year in office he paid
no income tax at all in 10 of the
previous 15 years
according to the paper this it says was
largely because
he reported losing much more money than
he made
the new york times says the records
reveal the hollowness but also
the wizardry behind the self-made
billionaire image
floating presidential tradition mr trump
has long refused to make his
tax affairs public he's always insisted
his returns were the subject
of an audit by the u.s tax authorities
preventing him from releasing details
speaking at a news conference at the
white house he was quick to deny
the latest story it's fake news it's
totally fakeness
made up fake we went through the same
stories you could have asked me the same
questions four years ago i had to
litigate this and talk about it
totally fake news now actually i paid
tax
but and you'll see that as soon as my
tax returns are
it's underwater they've been under order
for a long time
a lawyer for the trump organization said
the new york times story was
riddled with gross inaccuracies and he
questioned its timing
it was he said part of an ongoing smear
campaign
in the run-up to the election it follows
mr trump's controversial nomination
of a conservative judge to sit on the
u.s supreme court
it also marks the start of a pivotal
week in the campaign
when the president and joe biden will
finally go
head-to-head on tv peter bowes bbc news
los angeles i'm joined now by laura
podesta from cbs news who's in ohio
ahead of the first presidential debate
laura thanks very much for joining us
first of all what's been the
reaction to this new york times report
good to be here
well as you heard in the report prior
president trump's
team and himself he's saying this is
fake news this has been a witch hunt
that's been ongoing since his 2016
campaign
and the fact that those tax returns were
not released as
part of the article he's going to point
to as the fact that they
that news or that information is fake
the new york times says it's not going
to be revealing the actual
contents of the tax returns at least not
yet in order to protect its sources
but this will be a trickle effect as in
the lead up to the election we know that
the new york times says it has many
other
articles that it's ready to release
in addition to this overview of the tax
returns
as far as joe biden's campaign he's
responding already with an
ad and that ad gives the
average federal income tax return
for normal american workers like
construction managers and nurses as
being in the
thousands of dollars per year on average
and it's
stark in comparison to president trump's
alleged
tax returns in 2016 and 2017 which was
just 750
750 each we also know that the biden
campaign is using this as an opportunity
to fundraise they're now
releasing vinyl stickers reading quote i
paid more in taxes than president trump
laura as you say we're about four weeks
away from the
presidential election and tomorrow
in ohio will be the first presidential
debate which is why
you're there no doubt this will be
something that the biden camp
will raise and continue to raise
throughout the debate
exactly this was not on the
pre-determined list of topics that chris
wallace
had released ahead of this debate
but now that the new york times has come
out with this article it is surely going
to be something that
the former vice president is going to
bring up and something that i think
president trump will have to defend
again and again on the debate stage
of course this debate is 90 minutes long
it's going to be covering
several topics no commercial breaks so
there will be an opportunity for the
president to deflect and to use a lot of
the examples that i gave before where he
can say look the new york times never
released
the actual tax returns how how can you
prove this isn't fake news
this has been a witch hunt since 2016.
so
i also think that this debate will be an
opportunity for
the candidates to really show their
their constituents the people who they
believe
will vote for them why they are
presidential so i don't think that
there's going to be
as much bullying as we might have
thought or or expect there to be on the
debate stage
um this is according to a political
science professor that i spoke to over
the weekend she said she
she really thinks that they'll they will
tone down any form
of offense and they'll really be
encouraging
voters to head to the polls on november
3rd because
so many voters here in the u.s are
already decided so these
these candidates know that it's going to
take a lot to change their mind so i
really think they're going to be telling
people
you know just head to the polls make
sure that you vote for me laura
thanks so much for that update there
from ohio
now i'm joined by dr julie norman from
university college london who has been
following the saga of donald trump's
taxes thank you very much uh dr norman
for joining us here on the program if
this new york times investigation
is to be believed it really does paint a
president
in financial distress it certainly does
and it's also just such a contrast to
the image that trump has really
painted and sold to the american people
of himself as
a self-made businessman as this you know
very successful billionaire and instead
we see that instead he's
really struggled quite significantly and
has really used
his losses to his own gain in terms of
getting out of taxes so
this really is a very different image
than he's tried to paint in the past
so i suppose the question is uh if this
is a different image
that he has painted and if these taxes
are
accurate does it actually dent his base
or
or dent uh you know the people who are
likely to vote for him in
in about four weeks time well i think
that's the question and again this is
coming from
the new york times it's a source that
trump likes to
frame as part of the liberal media that
has an agenda against him
and so we'll probably be hearing him use
that kind of framing quite a bit in his
response to this story
and that usually goes pretty far with
his base as well
in terms of people seeing the president
being a
victim of this kind of witch-hunt from
the media and not necessarily looking
specifically at the details
whereas liberals and democrats of course
will be really doing the opposite and
really trying to lean into the details
of this
story to see what has been going on over
the past
you really over the past decade what for
you are some of the key
takeaways from this investigation
yes so this is first it's important to
underscore the investigation has been
ongoing i think for four years by the
times this is a very
uh very thorough investigation they've
been doing
and the takeaways coming out of it for
some are
confirming i think what a lot of a lot
of trump's critics have thought from the
start
that in fact his uh finances were
probably more questionable than he was
letting on
which really just again goes align with
trump's general sense of not always
being honest with the american people so
i think
for me just that sense of underscoring
again that
since can trump be trusted is a big
question going into the campaign
or going to the election and of course
just what
what wrongdoing actually was uh taking
place was there tax evasion
was there um you know uh improper
write-offs
and are those things that the democrats
can take advantage of as we get closer
to november
i i suppose the other question is from
this particular
investigation because of course we
haven't seen the actual
uh taxes is there anything there that's
incriminating or perceived to be illegal
you so far what we've seen today from
the times is
more showing again this this very
different image of trump
and also showing a lot of the tactics
that he used to be able to
use his losses to his own advantage with
taxes
so far what we've seen from the reports
are not making
legal allegations but with that said
there
are a number of suits already in process
in the past with trump
regarding his business empire and this
will probably pivot a lot more attention
on those and potentially incur new ones
to arise as well
and we expect more to be coming out in
terms of details from the times
in this investigative report over the
next couple weeks
dr julie norman thank you very much for
joining us here on the program