During her “60 Minutes” interview, Vice President Kamala Harris was pressed to explain how she intended to pay for key elements of her progressive agenda. The Democratic nominee told CBS News’ Bill Whitaker that she intends to “make sure that the richest among us, who can afford it, pay their fair share in taxes.”
A day later, Donald Trump sat down for his latest interview with Newsmax, a conservative outlet, and the host asked the former president for his reaction to Harris’ comments.
“You don’t tax the rich,” the Republican said, adding that the wealthiest Americans already “pay most of the tax in the country.”
“You don’t tax the rich” — Trump on Newsmax makes an impassioned case against increasing taxes on the wealthy and says if Kamala wins it’s “guaranteed” that the country will hit a 1929-style depression (he said the same BS in 2020) pic.twitter.com/nfymjpNxKj
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 8, 2024
At first blush, this might not seem especially notable. After all, this has been standard GOP orthodoxy for many years.
But what was striking about Trump’s latest comments was the degree to which they reject the rhetoric that helped get the Republican elected in the first place.
Eight years ago, Trump sat down with NBC News’ Savannah Guthrie who asked the then-candidate about his views on tax policy. “Do you believe in raising taxes on the wealthy?” the “Today” host asked.
“I do,” Trump replied. “I do — including myself. I do.”
The audience, it’s worth noting, applauded the answer — because raising taxes on the wealthy tends to be quite popular.
A few months earlier, the future president told Bloomberg Politics that multi-millionaires were “paying very little tax and I think it’s outrageous. … I know people in hedge funds that pay almost nothing and it’s ridiculous, OK?”
Asked if he was prepared to raise his own taxes, Trump said at the time, “That’s right. That’s right. I’m OK with it.” To be sure, once he was in the White House, the Republican quickly abandoned all of this and prioritized deep and unpopular tax breaks for the wealthy and big corporations, but at least as a candidate, Trump pretended to support measures that would’ve asked more from the rich. He was at least willing to pay lip service to the kind of policies most voters wanted — and continue to want — to see. Eight years later, he no longer bothers to keep up the pretense. Trump hasn’t unveiled any detailed plans related to tax policy, but the GOP candidate and his team have made clear that they want to build on his regressive record and approve another round of tax breaks for those at the very top. After all, as Trump told Newsmax, “You don’t tax the rich.” There are no doubt plenty of voters who backed the Republican in the 2016 race, assuming he was relatively moderate on policies like these and willing to break with his own party’s orthodoxy. In 2024, those same voters shouldn’t be fooled twice.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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