The 2016 Blast The latest POLITICO scoops and coverage of the 2016 elections. Email Sign Up

Tweets from https://twitter.com/politico/lists/team-politico



“Well maybe because of the fact that I’m a strong Christian, and I feel strongly about it. And maybe there’s a bias," Donald Trump said. Trump on why he's being audited: Maybe it's because I'm Christian

Minutes after the debate wrapped, Donald Trump stood for an interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo where he offered an explanation as to why he thinks his taxes are being audited. During the debate itself, he explained that he could not release his tax returns because they are still being audited, even though it is not legally prohibited.

"But the one problem I have is that I’m always audited by the IRS, which I think is very unfair. I don’t know, maybe because of religion, maybe because I’m doing something else, maybe because I’m doing this, although this is just recently," he said, referring to his campaign.

Cuomo then asked what Trump meant by "religion."

“Well maybe because of the fact that I’m a strong Christian, and I feel strongly about it. And maybe there’s a bias," Trump said, adding, “You see what’s happened. I mean, you have many religious groups have been complaining about that. They’ve been complaining about it for a long time.”

Cuomo suggested that Trump would make an issue out of any other candidate who has refused to release his tax returns, an assertion with which he disagreed.

"Nobody would ever put out their returns that's under an audit," Trump said. "And by the way, I always pass the audit."