Just like a lot of other Americans this week, Joe Scarborough is officially worried about Donald Trump’s tax returns. The MSNBC host and former Republican representative ripped Trump on Monday, calling into question his appeal to “working class voters” after the New York Times reported on Sunday about Donald Trump’s extensive business losses and years where he paid as little as $750 in income taxes.
Speaking on Monday’s Morning Joe, Scarborough noted how working class people in a potential swing state like Pennsylvania might worry about an apparently successful businessperson paying less in taxes than they would at their more ordinary jobs.
Morning Joe thinks normal people will get so mad at @realDonaldTrump for not having a big enough tax bill that we’ll all go vote for Biden to make our own tax bills bigger: pic.twitter.com/W42BkmaTxn
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) September 28, 2020
“If you are a construction worker in Philly, if you are a waitress in Lancaster County. If you’re a schoolteacher in Scranton and you’re looking up at the news today and you’re finding out that you paid more in federal income taxes than a guy that’s lived in a gold-plated, what, 90-story building and flown around in private jets and flown around the world and illegally, probably illegally, deducted taxes,” Scarborough said. “Not a really great message for the final month or so of the campaign. That is something that voters can understand. A guy working at Walmart goes ‘Wait a minute, I paid more than $750 in taxes this past year.’ And look at all those years where people like Trump and Amazon pay zero in income taxes. It’s just not right.”
According to Mediate, that’s not the only thing he had to say about Trump, either, calling him the “least successful business person of all time,” while co-host Mika Brzezinski called him “the biggest loser,” among other things:
“Think of all the money he lost over the years,” Brzezinski said. “I mean, talk about the biggest loser. Never seen a worse businessman in my life.”
Scarborough interjected to note that some might find it hyperbole to call Trump the “biggest loser.” But the MSNBC host argued that the numbers prove it out.
“He lost more money than any other American citizen,” Scarborough said. “And the amazing thing is his daddy gave him the equivalent of $400 million, and he lost all of that. Bankruptcies right and left. Then, as he was struggling, he finally got to The Apprentice and struck oil there. Made another $400 million there. Lost all of that money. I don’t know, you would think if you lost $400 million that your daddy gave you the first time, you would say, ‘Hey, the next time I make some money, I’m not going to be really stupid with it.’”
He later called Trump the “least successful business person of all time” and said New Yorkers have long laughed at the prospect of his business acumen as it was projected to the rest of the country:
“I think it’s safe to say, if you just look at the federal records, Mika, he is the least successful business person of all time,” Scarborough said. “And the incredible thing is, he has painted himself as this great businessman — which, by the way, we all know that in New York, real business people would die laughing at the prospect when Donald Trump was doing The Apprentice.”
It’s pretty serious blowback in the mainstream media from a report that the Times promised would be the first of several about Trump’s tax returns and the complicated way he avoided paying taxes, not to mention the millions of dollars in losses his businesses have seen over the years. It’s clearly a hot topic in what’s been an unprecedented election season, and will certainly be a topic in Tuesday night’s debate.