Seth Meyers thinks he knows who leaked Donald Trump's tax returns
Even before The New York Times dropped its bombshell about Donald Trump's taxes, "it had already been one of the worst weeks for any presidential candidate in history," Seth Meyers said on Monday's Late Night. Trump's bad debate performance compounded by his public weight-shaming of a former Miss Universe ended in an early-morning tweet storm on Friday. "He tweeted 'check out sex tape,'" Meyers emphasized. "That's the Republican nominee for president sounding like your older brother's to-do list from 1988." After becoming the first presidential nominee in history to encourage people to watch porn, "how much worse could the Trump sh-tshow get?" Meyers asked.
That brought him to Trump's 1995 tax return, sent to The Times in an envelope with a Trump Tower return address. Meyers briefly speculated about who could have it out for Trump, with a "the killer is in the building!" joke, the said that "as soon as these documents were published, the Trump Team once again started falling wildly." But "here's why this revelation is so damning," Meyers said, in case you couldn't figure it out yourself. "First of all, there's the fact that Trump has consistently sold himself as a brilliant businessman who could use those skills to fix the economy. But the people who invested in Trump's companies may not agree." Trump made roughly $45 million between 1995 and 2009 as chairman or CEO of his casino company, while his ordinary investors saw their shares tank to 17 cents a share, from $35.50. "Normally to get that screwed, you actually have to go into the casino," Meyers said. "And at least then, they have the decency to give you free drinks."
"So this week showed once again how much of a scam artist Trump is, and even after all this, Trump still won't release his tax returns," Meyers said. "Just think how bad they have to be that whatever's in there is worse than a $900 million loss." He repeated his theory that Trump is hiding the fact that he's poor, then spun that into an elaborate conspiracy theory that ended fingering an unlikely culprit for the leaked tax returns. Watch below. Peter Weber
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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