Writing for the Bulwark, former Republican National Committee spokesperson Tim Miller claimed the New York Times' explosive report on Donald Trump taxes -- and the fact that he is basically not paying any -- exposed the president as a "populist fraud" who has pulled a fast one on the "rubes" by making them think he cares about them.
Miller began by quoting from the president's ghost-written "Art of the Deal" where the president supposedly claimed, "You can’t con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don’t deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on,” which now seems prescient based upon the bombshell tax return report.
As Miller sees it, the president's "long economic populist con" crashed and burned on Sunday when the Times revealed he only paid $750 in federal taxes the year he ran for president while he was writing off $70,000 for hairstyling.
"For most of the past 15 years, while he was living a life of luxury that most Americans can only dream of, he was racked with massive debts and paying no income tax thanks to business write-offs on flamboyant haircuts, consulting fees paid to his daughter, and a summer retreat where his large adult sons liked to ride ATVs and laugh at the poor suckers who had to mow the lawn," Miller wrote before explaining that image has now come to an abrupt end.
Miller claimed that a great part of the president's appeal to people who voted for him was his signature achievement tax cut that was supposed to improve their lives.
However, "It was part and parcel of the broader so-called 'economic populism' bill of goods that Trump and 'sloppy' Steve Bannon, his pit-stained, triplicate-shirted, faux-everyman muse, sold the American people. They were going to raise taxes on the wealthy, take on Jeb and Ted and Hillary’s Wall Street cronies, and finally build a wall on the border, making Mexico pay. None of this, of course, was true. There was no economic populist agenda," Miller wrote before adding that it was actually "a boon to the wealthy."
Miller called out the president who claimed at the tax bill signing the new policies would "cost me a fortune.”
"A face-saving ruse. That’s all it ever was. A story for the rubes," the former RNC official explained before adding it was pitched at winning over "disaffected white working-class former Democrats."
"Many of us knew it was all a lie back then. But the last four years have revealed it time and time again," Miller wrote. "The tax returns are the final reveal that proves the case. And now Joe Biden has all he needs in the final weeks of the campaign to reveal the con to the 'losers and suckers' whom Donald Trump forgot about."
You can read the whole piece here.