I actually agree with this. She started to answer like John Kerry – “I was for it before I was against it…” – but caught herself and haltingly give some nuanced but unconvincing reply.
But hey, her one weak moment … can’t complain.
We don’t really need to know any more. Clinton successfully goaded him into admitting he doesn’t pay taxes, and “that makes him smart”.
At least when Hillary lies, she sticks to her story. Trump can’t even remember what he said. When he actually tells the truth, it’s only because of random chance.
doorhinge is ignoring that Trump already did hint about that in the devate: only the little people pay taxes.*
In other news, that shows how an incompetent Trump would be in a crisis, is that it took him 3 days to figure out that he lost the debate.
- I do see Trump not only as a male version of Palin, but also as a male version of Leona Hemsley.
You seem to have misread the question. We are not asking you what excuse Trump is using for not releasing his tax returns; we already have that answer direct from the horse’s ass. We are asking about the actual reason for hiding the returns.
I’m reminded of Harry Truman, who delayed the Potsdam conference by a couple weeks so he could know about the results of the atom bonb test before it was over – and thus know how hard-line he could be in negotiations with Stalin over postwar Europe.
Truman’s excuse to Stalin and to the world for the delay was “I’m stuck in Washington on business until the end of the fiscal year.” Such a lame excuse – wouldn’t surprise me if it made Stalin so suspicious that he might have even guessed the true reason for the delay.
Oh, I think there’s a lot more in there.
A lot of rubles, perhaps.
As doorhinge demonstrates, the Trumpists refuse to acknowledge that the “I’m being audited” thing is nonsense. Trump won’t release them because Trump’s hiding something. And I think it’s worse than not paying taxes, because
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If Trump personally made a lot of money, he paid taxes. There is a limit as to how much you can get away with if you actually made over six hundred million dollars, as he asserts. Rich people can keep that number down but he paid SOMETHING if he made a lot of money.
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Even if what he paid was less as a percentage than what a normal person paid, that number can be spun “Seventy million dollars I paid in tax! That’s a lot of money, I mean, a lot of money, I’m proud I paid all that money!” and if released early in the election cycle would not mean much come November.
So either he didn’t actually make a lot of money, or there’s skeletons in there worse than not paying taxes.
I don’t care what he obliquely admitted. I’d keep hammering him with the ‘what’s he hiding? Payments to Russia? He didn’t pay any tax? He’s poorer than he says? What?’
I’d keep worst-casing that until he had a stroke. It’s a key vulnerability and there’s no sense no poking him in the sore spot all the way through election day.
But Trump said he would release his returns if Hillary released more emails.
So Trump literally said he will ignore his legal advice – just not for the sake of being open with American voters, as every other presidential candidate for half a century has done.
ETA: And Nixon was actually under audit for one year of his returns – he ended up owing the IRS the modern-day equivalent of $2 million in unpaid taxes.
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Yes, I agree with you.
The 1st debate doesn’t seem to have changed anyone’s mind. Is there any debate advantage if nothing has changed?
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Isn’t that the same thing as saying he won’t release his tax returns? 
Hillary still insists that she’s released her emails. At least the FBI keeps releasing Hillary’s emails for her.
Based on the polls since the debate, Hillary’s lead has expanded considerably.
Early yet but the RCP 4-way rolling average is the highest plus Clinton it’s been since September 5th. Clinton’s share in that rolling average is the highest it’s been since August 14th.
The Trump is back to talking about why it is okay to refer to women who have gained weight as Miss Piggy and to their being Latinas as being Miss Housekeeping.
Responding most conservatively: the person who is behind this close to election day needs something dramatic to change. Keeping that from happening and dominating a bit of the news cycles for the next week with Trump floundering is a major debate advantage for Clinton. The increase in the national polls advantage for Clinton will increase as more come in (and for now are more reflected in states results) but at this point the impact on motivating turnout on each side is more important. Clinton played well to her supporters and has gotten them more revved; Trump’s supporters are saying things like “Well the jackass at the front of my mule train, so I’ll stick with him.” That will mean something on election day.
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Yes, it is early.
I’m very curious to see if any numbers have changed.
Would you like an explanation of how polls work?
They have, both nationally and in many swing states.
Interesting that you added a period after my “Early yet …” completely ignoring the comment on what the polling data shows so far that is how the numbers have changed so far, even though it is early yet.
I may have my current quibbles with 538 but there is a reason why they have on polling-only moved from Trump’s estimate being a 45% chance to a 33% one.
In case you are still very curious to see if any numbers have changed here is a recent 538 post about the recent numbers:
Still curious?
Again, *this * is with it still being early. And before he did his who-knows-what fueled all night twitter meltdown explaining why a Miss Universe deserved to be the object of misogynistic and racist insults from him since she later posed for topless pictures like his wife has.
It’s a weird format, they have to connect to 1 person and stay connected, while they’re connecting to a room of people, and connecting to everyone at home. People who know her say that she’s a great listener. If she can convey that in the debate it will help her. Listening does not seem to be in Trump’s skill set. That said - he is good at connecting with large crowds.
He has to connect one on one, on an individual basis, with each questioner. He is NOT going to be “in front of a large crowd” and his large crowd schtick will not play at all.