The Treasury Secretary Was Just Asked About Trump’s Taxes. His Answer Is Disgusting
President Trump’s Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was in the middle of a press conference about the administration’s new tax reform plans today when he was asked if the President would ever release his tax returns.
Mnuchin snapped back that there will be no release as many politicians have demanded and polls show the majority of American people want.
“The President has released plenty of information,” said Mnuchin. “I think he has given more financial disclosure than anybody else. I think the American population has plenty of information.”
Mnuchin says Trump won't release tax returns: The president “has given more financial disclosure than anybody else" https://t.co/f1ZUqwuy6c
— NBC News (@NBCNews) April 26, 2017
When the reporter tried to follow up on Mnuchin’s predictable response about Trump’s tax returns, he looked irritated as he waved him off and said “other people have to ask questions as well.”
In talking about Trump being the only President in the modern era not to release his tax returns, Mnuchin is just parroting the same line Trump has been giving since he began his run for the nation’s top office. The only disclosure he has made was on required government forms which only partially detail his fortune and holdings, and do not provide any of the detail available in a tax return and related documents that could show his sources of income from his American backers as well as foreign businesses and governments.
The only disclosures Trump has made was on required government forms, which only partially detail his fortune and holdings.
Those forms do not provide any of the detail available in a tax return and related documents that could show his sources of income from his rich American backers as well as foreign businesses and governments.
Mnuchin, who worked on Wall Street and was a controversial banker before being tapped to run Treasury by Trump, has consistently followed the party line in his comments on the President. In the face of controversies and fake facts, Mnuchin has gone out of his way to defend and apologize for Trump and his family.
In March, when asked about Trump’s style in the White House, Mnuchin declared that the President has “perfect genes” which allow him to keep up a rapid pace of phone calls, meetings, and other duties. “This guy’s got more stamina than anybody I’ve ever met,” he said.
The way Mnuchin insisted Trump has released enough information and then refused to answer a follow-up question was a very Trumpian approach to deflecting the press, and an ominous sign of how Trump and Mnuchin will handle tax reform in the days ahead.
