Kaine taunts Trump to reveal more about his health, money

Donald Trump owes the American public “some basic facts” about his financial and health history, Democratic vice-presidential candidate Tim Kaine said Tuesday, and the fact that the Republican nominee has thus far kept that information from voters is evidence that he has something to hide.

“When candidates are on the up and up, they have no problem disclosing information on all these points,” Kaine said at a rally Tuesday in Pennsylvania. “You have a right to know, you have a right to expect, and a candidate who’s on the up and up has no problem giving you the facts.”


The Virginia senator attacked Trump as dishonest for keeping his tax returns and other financial documents private when both Hillary Clinton and her running mate have released years of tax returns. Building on a point he makes regularly on the campaign trail, Kaine said getting that financial data is important in part because it makes clear any foreign entanglements a candidate might have that “could impact our national security.”

Getting such information out of Trump, Kaine said, is even more important because the real estate mogul has never held elected office and therefore has never had to file the type of financial disclosure forms that others in government are required to. Clinton’s running mate said “that makes these questions about his finances, about his taxes, about his foreign connections, about his health even more urgent than usual.”

Trump has previously and repeatedly said that he will not release his tax returns because he is currently under audit and his lawyers have advised him against it. But the IRS said last February that there is nothing, including an audit, that would prohibit Trump from releasing his tax returns, and Kaine pointed out that former President Richard Nixon released his own tax documents when he was under audit.

“Richard Nixon released his tax returns when he was under audit,” Kaine said. “It’s hard to not get over a low hurdle of the Nixon standard for ethics, but Donald Trump can’t even get over the Nixon standard for ethics.”

Citing New York Times reporting, Kaine said Trump and his various companies are more than $500 million in debt to various banks. Through business partnerships, Kaine said, Trump is in debt to the state-owned Bank of China, which the Virginia senator said calls into question the GOP nominee’s pledge to negotiate more strongly with the Chinese government.

“Let’s be honest,” Kaine said. “It would be pretty hard to reign people in when you owe them big time.”

Kaine also raised concern that Trump’s refusal to release tax returns and other financial data might be an effort to hide ties to Russian oligarchs and to the Russian government itself. He highlighted Trump’s decision to take his Miss Universe pageant to Moscow and cited a 2008 speech by Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. in which he said “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.”

The Democratic vice-presidential candidate wondered aloud how tough Trump would really be in stopping Russia from annexing more territory like it did with Crimea, a piece of Ukraine that the real estate mogul has said he would consider officially recognizing as Russian.

“Don’t you think the American voters deserve at least to get to the bottom of why Trump’s relationship with Russia is so cozy? I mean what has he got to hide? We deserve to get to the bottom of this,” Kaine said. “As long as he keeps hiding his tax returns, we have no idea how he might stand to profit from Russia or what they might be holding over him. All we know is that something strange is going on.”

Kaine said he was “amazed” that Trump had raised the issue of Clinton’s health on the campaign trial, a talking point that the senator said Trump had pulled “from the fringes of the Internet.” The Virginia senator offered assurances that despite what Trump and others from his campaign and the political right have said, Clinton is perfectly healthy.

“Can I give you an up close and personal on this?” Kaine asked. “I have been on the trail with Hillary for five weeks, and I can barely keep up with her.”

Accusations of less-than-perfect health have crept into the presidential race in recent weeks, although such rumors have existed on the political fringe for much longer. Conservative Fox News host Sean Hannity has pushed theories that Clinton is less than healthy, and Trump himself has said that Clinton “lacks the mental and physical stamina to take on ISIS.”

By contrast, Kaine said the letter from Trump’s doctor assuring that the Manhattan billionaire is healthy was “either too funny to be true or too true to be funny” because of the doctor’s recent admission that he wrote the letter in five minutes with language he thought would make his patient happy.

“Hillary Clinton has met every test of disclosure we expect of presidential candidates and in many cases has gone even further. Donald Trump has failed all of these tests miserably," Kaine said. “It’s like he thinks we’re gullible. It’s like he thinks we’re suckers. It’s like he thinks we’re marks.”