Donald Trump boasts about having paid NO federal tax during bad-tempered presidential debate with Hillary Clinton
Both candidates repeatedly accused the other of being unfit to serve as president
Donald Trump appeared to boast about having paid no federal tax during tonight’s bad-tempered TV debate with Hillary Clinton.
Clinton knocked Trump for not releasing his income tax returns and said that decision raised questions about whether he was as rich and charitable as he has said.
Clinton noted that the few years of tax returns he had released showed that despite his wealth, he had paid no federal income tax.
“That makes me smart,” Trump said.
“I have a tremendous income,” he said at one point, adding that it was about time that someone running the country knew something about money.
Trump, a real estate tycoon making his first run for public office, said Clinton's long years of service represented “bad experience” with few results and suggested her disavowal of a trade deal with Asian countries was insincere.
Related Stories
For Trump, 70, the debate was a chance to appear disciplined.
For Clinton, 68, it was an opportunity to reassure voters she could be trusted. It remained to be seen how voters would judge their performance.
Markets have tended to see Clinton as the candidate of the status quo.
In one of the more heated exchanges, the two candidates attacked each other for the controversy Trump stoked for years over whether President Barack Obama was born in the United States.
The president, who was born in Hawaii, released a long form birth certificate in 2011 to put the issue to rest. Only this month did Trump say publicly that he believed Obama was U.S.-born.
“He (Trump) has really started his political activity based on this racist lie that our first black president was not an American citizen. There was absolutely no evidence for it. But he persisted. He persisted year after year,” Clinton said.
Trump repeated his false accusation that Clinton's failed 2008 presidential campaign against Obama had initiated the so-called “birther” issue.
“Nobody was pressing it, nobody was caring much about it ... I was the one that got him to produce the birth certificate and I think I did a good job,” Trump said.
African-American voters overwhelmingly support Clinton, but Trump in recent weeks has said he believes his policy agenda would benefit them and said the policies of Obama and Clinton had failed to help black Americans.
He said Clinton's arguments were disingenuous.
“When you try to act holier than thou, it really doesn't work,” Trump said.