Trump's tax 'duplicity' has derailed his campaign's focus on a Supreme Court win for his base: analyst

According to NBC senior political analyst Jonathan Allen, the bombshell report from the New York Times revealing the president has avoided by paying taxes while living a lavish lifestyle has ended two good days of news for the president after he pleased his base with the nomination of conservative judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

Trump's re-election campaign has seen few good days with the president's poll number continuing to either fall or remain stagnant with the election less than 40 days away and the feeling of a major victory for conservatives with the judicial announcement has now been overwhelmed by the news of the president's tax "duplicity," as Allen put it.

According to the analyst, reporting on Coney Barrett's all-but-certain march to the country's highest court has been buried by a blitz of reports about Trump paying only $750 in taxes the year he was elected.

As Allen notes, the tax reports joins reports of a resurgent COVID-19 health crisis that will occupy the campaign's time which once again finds itself back playing defense.

"The tax payment numbers are empirical evidence of his long history of duplicity on his business record. They show that most of his ventures, save for branding himself as a big-swinging CEO, have been abject failures," he wrote. "That evidence comes on the heels of Trump's acknowledgment that he played down the threat of the coronavirus, which has claimed more than 200,000 American lives and millions of jobs, and the possibility that he paid less than he owed in taxes gives lift to the charge that he doesn't understand the concept of sacrifice."

With the first presidential debate looming on Tuesday, Allen said Trump must choose whether to "tell the American public that his tax filings were bogus or admit that he isn't the heavy-hitting CEO he says is."

"At a time when Trump should be able to use the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to focus the voting public on a topic he likes — his judicial appointments — he will be forced to address the particulars of his tax filings. They run counter to his own narrative that he is applying skills learned in the business world to promote prosperity for the American people," the analyst wrote before concluding, "For the voters he needs to push to mobilize and for those he needs to swing his way, it is likely to raise more doubts about his integrity. That won't help him win the presidency."

You can read the whole piece here.