Trump has pinned himself politically on his tax returns

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock, New York Times)

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a sweeping investigation into many years of President Trump's tax returns, which they obtained from an anonymous source. It turns out Trump has paid no federal income tax for 10 of the last 15 years, and in 2016 and 2017 he paid just $750.

This bombshell reporting poses two serious political problems for Trump. First, he has (as usual) claimed that the reporting is "fake news." He could prove that by releasing his actual returns, but he has resisted doing so for years, probably because he doesn't want people to see them. So either he lets people pick over his returns publicly, or he validates the Times reporting (which has certainly been heavily fact-checked) by acting guilty. A literal billionaire paying less in federal income tax than a single childless adult making $18,000 is bound to be unpopular.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.