Christie, Giuliani on tax bombshell: Trump a 'genius'

Donald Trump's top surrogates on Sunday tried to spin a report suggesting the GOP presidential nominee could have avoided paying federal taxes for almost two decades as evidence why he would be the best candidate to overhaul the tax system.

"There's no one who's shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code," New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said in an interview on "Fox News Sunday."


Trump's campaign was playing defense after a New York Times story on Saturday revealed that Trump reported a $916 million loss on his 1995 income tax returns, allowing him to avoid paying federal income taxes for as long as 18 years. Trump has refused to release his tax returns.

"The headline should have been, 'Donald Trump takes advantage of legal provisions in tax code,'" former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said on CNN's "State of the Union."

Christie, who is running Trump's presidential transition, said the story showed "what an absolute mess the federal tax code is, and that's why Donald Trump is the person best positioned to fix it."

"This is a perfectly legal application of the tax code," Giuliani said on ABC's "This Week." "And he would’ve been a fool not to take advantage of it. Not only that, he would’ve probably breached his fiduciary duty to his investors, to his business."