Drumpf hit Clinton on her unreleased speech transcripts the other day. I found this pretty funny given that he is aiming to be the first major party nominee in forty years not to release his tax returns. But then it hit me: Hillary should offer to release her speeches as long as Drumpf releases his taxes. And then just keep pounding on it (since you know he won’t do it).
Now, in some sense it’s not really a fair trade, since Hillary already released her tax returns. But there’s clearly something in there that Donald is desperate to keep from the public eye (my money is on it being very simple: they would show that he is a hundred-millionaire but short of being a billionaire, much less a multibillionaire as he claims). So she would not likely have to do it anyway.
And on the off chance he calls her bluff? I’m not too worried about the impact, because I think most likely her speeches were something that would have been awkward in the primaries but are not going to turn the general electorate against her. Unless there is really some kind of serious skeleton in there (which would be crazy stupid of the Clintonistas to ever allow in the first place), it’s got to be worth so much more to get a look under the hood of Drumpf’s finances.
Well, it’s not so much that it would prove he’s not a billionaire. I trust Forbes enough to assume they aren’t off by $4 billion but that is all assets. He likely has an unimpressive cash flow though, which would dent his image even if he is a billionaire on paper.
I guess she could issue the challenge but I’m not sure it would set a good precedent.
There’s gotta be something that’s, as Romney termed it, a “bombshell”. You don’t go against such a well established precedent just for shits and grins.
This whole issue about her speeches just cracks me up. I work for a fin-tech firm in banking. We host annual conventions for our clients, large Big Deal affairs. We bring in keynote speakers and over the past few years this has included former Presidents (Bush, Clinton) and former Sec of States (Powell, Rice) to address thousands of bankers.
Not one pulled out a monocle, twisted their mustache, and laughed about how they were going to screw the middle-class, hoard all the gold coins in their vaults, and destabilize the U.S. economy for profit. They give a fairly canned speech, touching upon their experience in their respective offices or positions. They will tell some cute anecdotal stories of their time in public service. They then have a segment of the speech with obviously is tailored to their audience and/or current issues/events. For a banking conference, they’ll discuss things like the pros/cons of regulation, the important role government can play in both regulatory oversight, effectively balancing the market vs. regulatory requirements, and in the case of both Powell and Rice bringing up their particular minority communities and their historical distrust of banks and what they can do to help overcome those perceptions.
Based upon this, I have a very, very hard time believing a speech given by HRC to Goldman Sachs was anything but the same dog-and-pony show. I sincerely cannot believe there is anything there that would hurt her. I can believe however that she has confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements with the clients who hired her for a non-public corporate event/speech. And I don’t believe she has any obligation to disclose the content of those speeches. She was paid to speak at a private event. Want to hear her 90% canned speech, hire her or get an invite to one of the private events she is speaking at.
Okay, in full disclosure former President Bill Clinton did kinda get off on a small rant about banks using unfair practices to line their pockets at the expense of the poor and middle-class. That didn’t sit well with some of the banks and they complained afterwards. In response we brought in President Bush the following year and he was much more “bank friendly” in his comments. LOL
I have a fair amount of confidence that it verifies that Trump has always paid far less than his ‘fair share’ of taxes, which would be vastly damaging to his chances with any but his rabid core. Charitable donations (or lack thereof) might be another possibility, but a minor one.
Trump’s whole campaign is defined by “No politician would ever be stupid enough to…” and then he goes and does it.
Furthermore, refusing to release tax returns makes him look tough and authoritative to his base.
I’m fairly certain the returns aren’t flattering to Trump, but I really doubt there’s any bombshell there. Certainly no bombshell on par with banning Muslim travel and prejudice against “Mexican” judges.
Mark Cuban and Josh Marshall had an email discussion on this very topic. Cuban thinks Trump is “embarrassed by how much he made in a given year” and that there’s nothing more sinister to it than that.
Yup, this is exactly what I think. But IMO, politically (and psychologically, for an insecure braggart like Drumpf), that’s far more damaging than something “sinister”. Sinister, Drumpf can work with. It’s sort of his brand! But a paltry income would be too humiliating to bear. I think if Congress suddenly passed a law changing this disclosure from customary to mandatory, Drumpf would drop out of the race.
So I think Hillary (and/or her surrogates) should speculate that this is what the deal is, and start throwing around jibes like “I heard a rumor that he’s only worth $150 million, and he only made less than $2 million in after-tax income last year. Some billionaire! No wonder he doesn’t want to release his taxes: he squandered his inheritance.” There’s ample evidence that this kind of thing drives him absolutely insane (er, more insane than usual) and he’s likely to blow up and hurt his already poor poll numbers in response.
I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a line or two in there which, if taken out of context, would look bad. “The banks are great. On the other hand, the banks suck.”
Would a speaker sign an NDA for the speech? After all, it is her speech, unless they gave her some confidential information under an NDA which she used in her speech. I’ve brought in outside speakers for company meetings (nothing as big as these) and we never would even think about having them sign NDAs.
If there were an NDA, I think Clinton would have cited it as a valid reason for keeping it under wraps. I imagine the speech is mostly innocuous boilerplate with, as Voyager says, a line or two that a left-leaning critic could take out of context to beat her with. An ordinary pol might have just let the speeches out and taken the lumps; Clinton’s distrust of the media and natural penchant for secrecy make that a non-starter for her.
Maybe it’s just my cynicism showing, but I think it’s more than that.
Or less, if you will.
Like you were just saying, I figure it’s probably an “innocuous boilerplate” speech. As in, the kind of speech that’s obviously not worth the money they paid her. Like, not even close. It’s basically a straight cash payment, only with the gossamer-thin veil of it being a payment for a speech that, well, must’ve just been a revelation.
If you publicize it, then (a) that’s laid bare; they’re obviously paying good money for nothing. And also (b) once it’s a matter of public record, she just as obviously can’t keep a straight face while charging full price to deliver that same boilerplate again, right? So the whole idea is to keep it under wraps – like if you got worthless advice from a paid “consultant”, and revealing the text of it would expose the sinecure.
You get paid by someone to make a speech for them, of course you’re going to say something good. I wouldn’t care if Clinton said she’s open up the Treasury for them to loot, for that kind of cash, I’d say anything. Its a speech, its irrelevant.
Tax returns are what you actually did, so its completely relevant. I hope that by the end of the election, we never see Clinton’s speeches and someone leaks the worst part of Trump’s tax returns to the media. Maybe there’s an old, retiring guy at the IRS who doesn’t care about his future and wants to accidentally copy it and hand it over to MotherJones.com?
But even that wild idea aside, can you imagine being the agent assigned to his audit? Knowing all these details the world is curious about, and having to keep it bottled up?
Oh, I wasn’t trying to cast aspersions on Hillary Clinton in particular; I pretty much figure that’s how it works across the spectrum; you exit the House or the Senate or whatever, and then you go on the lecture circuit or land a job with some think tank or get on the board of directors of a major company – and they aren’t paying you for what you actually say at the ensuing get-togethers, but folks kinda act like that’s the case, but the illusion fades if every word is put down on paper.
Donald Trump should focus on the fact that Chelsea’s husband runs a hedge fund financed by Lloyd Blankfein the CEO of Goldman Sachs. The Clintons are literally in bed with Wall Street.
