The Donald Trump Show (Ironic Return)

“Kellyanne Conway continues to stress the importance of ‘disclosure’ and ‘transparency’ in the election, unaware of the irony.”

―Steve Benen

If we started counting up the various assertions by which customs, rules, and even laws just aren’t supposed to apply to Republicans, would it be fair to call the mountain we’ve watched pile up the whole time “shocking”?

Probably not. Then again, I do wonder if, like “locker room talk”, we will try to reckon with such behavior while pretending it isn’t or wasn’t widespread. After this is over, watch and listen as Republicans and journalists alike try to minimize just how deeply they dove down the Trump hole.

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Image note: Top ― Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaks to supporters in Everett, Washington, 30 August 2016. (Detail of frame via YouTube) Right ― Kellyanne Conway speaks at the 2016 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland, 4 March 2016. (Photo by Gage Skidmore)

Benen, Steve. “Team Trump admits, public won’t see candidate’s tax returns”. msnbc. 31 October 2016.

The Donald Trump Show (Strong Campaigner)

Via NBC News:

Trump undermines his rationale for not releasing his taxes

On Fox last night, Trump appeared to suggest that the audit isn’t the ONLY thing keeping him from releasing his tax returns.

Q: If Gov Pence releases his tax returns does that put pressure on you to release yours?

Trump: Not at all. Nobody cares about it except some of the folks in the media. Nobody cares about it. But just so you understand I’m under audit. A routine audit. And when the audits complete I’ll release my returns. I don’t know when that’s gonna be. But when the audits complete I will release my returns. I have no problem with it it doesn’t matter.

Q: But people say you can do it while being audited?

Trump: No one would recommend that. In the meantime she has 33,000 emails that she deleted. When is she going to release her emails? She probably knows how to find it. Let her release her emails, and I’ll release my tax returns immediately.

That last line―”Let her release her emails, and I’ll release my tax returns immediately”―undermines the audit argument. It implies the audit isn’t the real excuse.

The only surprise in that is the straightforward reporting of Donald Trump’s self-contradiction.

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Image note: Donald Trump speaks to South Carolina voters in North Charleston, 19 February 2016. (Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Todd, Chuck, Mark Murray, and Carrie Dann. “5 Reasons Why National Security Is Playing a Big 2016 Role”. NBC News. 7 September 2016.

The Donald Trump Show (Tears for Fears)

The Donald Trump phenomenon is admittedly a depressing spectacle to witness. Then again, not all of that sucking of souls is entirely on the candidate; a vampiric press must also answer; sometimes instead of simply toddling back and forth in search of sound bite, it seems useful to mark thresholds and declare an issue, well, if not over, then at least sufficiently defined:

Anthony Scaramucci, a New York financier who recently backed Trump, told Fox News that the real estate mogul’s reluctance is due to “the complication of the return, the fact that he’s under an audit, he feels that he doesn’t want to give out that information to the general public and have a whole nightmare situation with opposition research trying to pick holes through the return.”

(Trudo)

Consider, please, that the argument put forth by a surrogate is essentially that the GOP frontrunner and presumptive nominee is afraid.

Yes, really:

“… he feels that he doesn’t want to give out that information to the general public and have a whole nightmare situation with opposition research trying to pick holes through the return.”

Such are the dangers of surrogacy: Mr. Trump apparently does not want to release his tax returns because he is afraid to answer for what is in them.