Trump's allies struggle to quash tax firestorm The Republican nominee's campaign is arguing his massive tax loss shows his business savvy.

Donald Trump’s aides and allies are struggling to extinguish the firestorm over the revelation that he may have avoided paying personal income tax for up to 18 years, as they fanned out on Tuesday to again defend the beleaguered Republican nominee.

Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s campaign manager, said his move to carry over a $916 million loss in 1995 was a perfectly legal provision in the tax code that half a million people took advantage of that year.


“You look around New York, and other cities, but particularly here, and you see the fruits of Donald Trump’s business acumen, what he did in carrying forward that loss,” Conway told “CBS This Morning.” “But the fact is, this man has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes over decades. Excise taxes, federal payroll taxes, city, state and local taxes real estate taxes, property taxes.”

“You didn’t say income taxes,” CBS anchor Norah O’Donnell interjected.

“Well he certainly has, in years that he made a profit, like anybody else, he paid income taxes," Conway replied.

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, now a paid contributor to CNN, backed up his successor Tuesday morning, arguing that out of “an obligation to his business, he's done what every other businessman in this country has done.”

As Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, gets ready to face off with Tim Kaine on Tuesday night on the Farmville, Virginia, debate stage, much of the attention is still focused on the bombshell report from The New York Times, which was mailed leaked copies of Trump’s tax documents from 1995.

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has seized on the news to try to drive home the idea that Trump only looks out for himself, while shafting the little guy, and that the core of his campaign message – that he’s a hugely successful businessman who can fix America’s problems – is bunk.

Trump, meanwhile, has been defiant. At a rally in Colorado on Monday night, he offered himself up as someone who’s fallen on hard times, and who knows how to rally back. While he pitched the idea that he can do the same for America, it also served as an analogy for his campaign, which has stumbled since last week’s debate.

“As a businessman and real estate developer, I have legally used the tax laws to my benefit and to the benefit of my company, my investors and my employees. I mean, honestly, I have brilliantly — I have brilliantly used those laws,” Trump said. “I have often said on the campaign trail that I have a fiduciary responsibility to pay no more tax than is legally required, like anybody else, or put another way: to pay as little tax as legally possible. And I must tell you, I hate the way they spend our tax dollars.”

It’s difficult to say which way Trump’s tax revelation will ultimately break. The Trump campaign's position, that the tax maneuver is a nonissue because it was legal, gained at least some traction among the cable TV pundits Tuesday morning.

Mika Brzezinski, the liberal half of MSNBC's "Morning Joe" anchoring duo, said she couldn't feel the Times' story resonating with voters. Instead, Clinton's own array of controversies make her campaign a less-than-credible vessel to make the case that Trump acted inappropriately with his 1995 tax return.

"I think the reaction to this New York Times story on Donald Trump's part was brilliant and the thing is, he didn't even think twice about it. He just went there. While she has been hiding this speech money, hiding this foundation stuff, hiding this email stuff and trying to get around it, 'mistakes were made,'" she said. "And I'm telling you, people don't -- they are not feeling a complete connection with her, and this doesn't help, to get all high and mighty. Get off your high horse about this tax thing. Unless laws were broken, it's not an issue. You guys cancel each other out."

Trump’s surrogates also tried to make this argument stick. Brunell Donald-Kyei, who helps with Trump’s diversity outreach, contended that the Manhattan billionaire’s desire to pay as little as possible in taxes actually puts him in lockstep with American voters.

“As long as he was above the board and legal and he didn’t violate any tax laws, I don’t understand what the big deal is,” she said Tuesday morning on Fox News. “I don’t know any American who gets their taxes and the tax person tells you ‘oh this is your low number,’ that says ‘hey, you know what? That doesn’t look high enough. Please, can you please jack it up for me so I can pay more?’”

The Times’ report has only amplified the drumbeats calling on Trump to release his tax returns, something every presidential candidate since Richard Nixon in 1972 has done. Trump has refused to do so, saying his lawyers have recommended against it until an IRS audit is complete.

Clinton’s campaign and her high-profile allies are trying to keep up the pressure on Trump to do so, while also painting Trump as abusing the tax system.

Vice President Joe Biden, who has built many of his stump speeches for Clinton around the idea of fairness, latched on especially firmly to the issue, hammering Trump as out of touch with middle-class Americans.

“I thought it was about making sure you did your part for your country,” the vice president said Tuesday morning in an interview with CNN. “Since when does somebody who lives at the top of the world in a penthouse overlooking the world be in a position where he doesn't feel any obligation at all to pay any federal income tax to support the military, to support education, to support our foreign policy? Since when is that a patriotic thing to do? Can you imagine any other president, any other president that’s existed ever say that and be proud of that? I can't fathom it.”

Biden also noted that Trump’s tax plan would further protect the type of provisions that the GOP nominee had available to him in 1995. The Republican nominee has long argued that his unrivaled understanding of the tax code makes him the best candidate to reform it, but in a separate CNN interview, Conway said addressing the specific provision in question need not be a priority for Trump.

“Because it’s been around for 100 years and it benefits many,” she said when asked why Trump, who has railed against the “rigged system,” would not call for a change to the tax provision that benefitted him in 1995. “What he said was that he knows how to leverage the tax system in a way that allowed him to absorb those losses in one year, 21 years ago, and moving forward, create thousands of jobs, reinvest and have an amazing comeback.”

Robby Mook, Clinton’s campaign manager, said the pre-debate talking points for Trump’s surrogates were evidence of a “panicked” campaign eager “to change the message.” He said he expected Pence to spend Tuesday night’s debate on the offensive throwing mud at Clinton and Kaine.

But Mook said he was eager to see how willing Pence would be to defend Trump not just on his alleged tax avoidance, but on a variety of issues that have dogged the billionaire’s presidential bid since the first debate.

“And it’s going to be very interesting to see how Mike Pence responds to questions about Trump’s behavior in the last week. You know, is he going to defend the way he attacked Alicia Machado, the former Miss Universe?” Mook asked during an interview with “CBS This Morning. “Is he going to defend the 3 a.m. Twitter rants? Is he going to defend Donald trump’s comments about veterans or the fact that he’s proud that he didn’t pay taxes for nearly two decades?”

