PRESCOTT VALLEY, Arizona — If Hillary Clinton didn’t like how Donald Trump was using the tax code, she should’ve changed it herself, Trump told a teeming Arizona crowd.
“After years of failure, she complains about how I’ve used the tax laws of this country to me benefit. Then I ask a simple question: why didn’t she ever try to change those laws so I couldn’t use them?” Trump wondered, reacting to the New York Times report on his 1995 tax returns. “She could’ve changed the laws when she was in the United States Senate, but she didn’t.” Clinton wasn’t elected to the senate until five years after the returns in question, in 2000.
The Republican nominee has recently tried to brand himself as a comeback story evidenced by the leaked returns, but Tuesday forewent that argument in favor of a blame game that Clinton wasn’t successful during her years in Washington and that he alone would change the tax code. His tax plan, however, does not propose changing the tax laws that allowed him to write off his net losses in the mid-1990s.
Trump also was quick to react to Monday remarks from President Bill Clinton, who Monday night described Obamacare as “the craziest thing in the world” because of rising premiums and decreased coverage during a rally in Flint, Michigan.
“Maybe he’s not a very good surrogate,” Trump said, noting that he felt Clinton finally told the truth on an issue Trump himself has been out in front of. “Now, I’ve been saying that for a long time. At least he’s honest – he’s very late.”
Clinton tried to walk the comments back at a rally Tuesday, but Trump had already seized on the initial remarks.
Noting the divide these comments bring between the former president and his wife, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, Trump prophesized “I’ll bet he went through hell last night.
“Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Can you imagine what he went through after making that statement?” Trump said, seeming to relish the thought. Then, as if remembering past threats to bring up the Clinton’s marriage, he added: “But you know, honestly, there have been many nights when he’s gone through hell with Hillary.”
Trump’s rally took another interesting turn when he weighed in on the schism between Russia and the United States in relation to Syria, Trump telling the crowd “Russia broke the deal on peace in Syria” and that they did so because they have “no respect” for America, Obama, or Hillary Clinton.
“Russia broke the deal and now they’re shooting, they’re bombing, something like that should end and end fast, it’s very sad,” Trump said, presumably of the prolonged violence and bombing in Syria’s Aleppo.
Despite prescribing America’s need for a “turnaround” led by Trump, the GOP nominee assessed that his rise could be having negative impacts on the stock market value of other countries. “Have you watched the stock market?” he asked. “Whenever I do well in the polls, other countries, they’re sort of – stock goes down. Their stock goes down.”
Without explaining what he meant, Trump moved on to another point, but he could mean that with Trump at the helm the American dollar would strengthen compared to that of other countries’ currencies. Or, alternatively, he could be cheering the rise of America at the expense of the global community and economy.
