An interview this morning on ABC’s Good Morning America became contentious as George Stephanopoulos pressed Donald Trump over his refusal to release his tax returns.
Trump has said he would release his returns at the conclusion of an IRS audit, though he said that might not happen before the November election. “As you know, Mr. Trump, the audit is no excuse,” Stephanopoulos said, noting that previous presidents have released returns while under audit.
“You say (voters) can’t learn anything. Actually, they can learn quite a lot. They can learn your sources of income. They can learn whether you have any foreign sources of income or whether you have any Swiss bank accounts or other offshore accounts.”
Trump has repeatedly said that this is nothing of interest in his returns, which he describes as “boring.” Stephanopoulos then asked the candidate flatly to reveal his tax rate, to which Trump said “it’s none of your business. You’ll see it when I release.”
Trump then suggested Stephanopoulos, who worked on Bill Clinton‘s presidential campaign and served in the Clinton White House—and, a year ago, apologized for failing to disclose contributions to the Clinton Foundation—was not impartial on Trump’s anticipated Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton.
“I know she’s a good friend of yours and I know you worked for her, but you didn’t reveal it.”
In another tense exchange Friday, Trump denied ever having given interviews while posing as his own spokesman, sometimes named “John Miller” and at other times, “John Barron”—a story reported today by The Washington Post.
“I have many, many people that are trying to imitate my voice and you can imagine that. This sounds like one of these scams, one of the many scams. It doesn’t sound like me,” Trump told Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie. “It was not me on the phone. And it doesn’t sound like me on the phone, I will tell you that. It was not me on the phone. Let’s go on to more current subjects.”
“You’re going so low as to talk about something that took place 25 years ago?”