"The Trump scandals are no longer a big deal in America."
In normal times, a US president would likely stumble over recent revelations. But Donald Trump could even benefit from his tax tricks, experts say. From Washington, Ines Pohl.
In an exclusive report, the New York Times revealed that, in 10 out of 15 years, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, had not paid a single federal income tax, and in 2016 and in his first year as president , only 750 dollars.
The report shows that Trump was either very unscrupulous about avoiding taxes or a very bad businessman. Or more likely, both. To put it in perspective, the average US citizen pays $ 12,200 to the Treasury, 16 times more than Donald Trump. The president himself described the information as a lie that the liberal press spread to harm him.
Just before the first television duel
Surely it will not be a coincidence that the liberal New York Times, which has been fighting with all the media for months against a re-election of Trump, dropped this information bomb so close to the first television duel, with the obvious hope that this information could help the candidate Democrat Joe Biden to score points in the 90-minute debate on Tuesday, September 29 (local time). It is the first of three television duels that will be particularly significant in this coronavirus year, as it is unlikely that the candidates and their teams will participate in public campaign events.
A total of six topics will be discussed, each in a 15-minute segment: the Supreme Court, that is, specifically, the succession of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died a week and a half ago; COVID-19; the economy, racism and violence in cities; the political record of Trump and Biden to date, and the integrity of the election itself.
The US secret services fear, as in 2016, interference from other countries. Trump has been claiming for weeks that an election by mail is unsafe and manipulable, thus paving the way to defy defeat. By the way, a fact check is not planned during the broadcast.
"The latest revelations are unlikely to change the voting intention of Trump supporters," says Sheri Berman, a political scientist at Bernard College of Columbia University. In the highly polarized landscape of the media, there are many who only learn about these things peripherally. Also, in recent years, people have gotten used to all the many lies and scandals. "That's just not a big deal here in America anymore," says Berman.
An evidence of Trumps intelligence
And that's not all: the scientist believes that it is very possible that Trump could even score points with some of his supporters for tax evasion, because they see his actions as proof of how cunning the president is and how well he knows what. Use tricks to get the most out of your actions.
So what chance does Joe Biden have to convince the electorate in this very important first television debate, which will be seen by millions of people inside and outside the US?
To have a real impact on voters who are still undecided, Biden would have to focus on his strengths, talk about why he is best suited to deal with the difficult economic situation during and after the coronavirus crisis. He should also aspire to bring into government a highly experienced staff who are capable of acting from day one, Berman says: "We learned during Hillary Clinton's 2016 election campaign that focusing on the negative in the opponent is not enough."
Berman is convinced that the report on Trump's potential tax tricks will only make most people shrug their shoulders. "Everybody now knows the nature of Donald Trump. They vote for him, because of his politics, or because they don't like the Democrats."
