Clinton hits Trump: 'What kind of genius loses a billion dollars?'
Hillary Clinton ripped Donald Trump over the report in The New York Times that he may have turned a nearly $1 billion loss into 18 years of not owing taxes, saying he was "taking from America with both hands, leaving the rest of us with the bill."
The tax story was the centerpiece of Clinton's argument on the economy, which came in the swing state of Ohio — which the Democratic presidential nominee had not visited since Labor Day.
"While millions of American families, including mine and yours, were working hard, paying our fair share, it seems he was contributing nothing to our nation," she said during the rally in Toledo.
"He’s been dissing America in this whole campaign. He talks us down, makes disparaging comments about our country, calls our military a disaster. It’s not, but it might have been if everyone else had failed to pay taxes to support our great men and women in uniform."
Polls have shown Trump and Clinton in a tight race in Ohio, where the Republican nominee's attacks on trade have resonated. The RealClearPolitics average of polls has Trump up 2 points in the state but moving blue..
Clinton attempted to make the most of the backdrop by rehashing Trump's ambivalence about the auto bailout in a state where the automobile sector had a significant footprint.
"At the time of the worst financial crisis in Ohio in 2009, he would have let you twist and fall," she said.
The report in the Times published on Saturday gave Clinton new ammunition to use against the celebrity businessman.
The Times report showed that Trump could have gotten away without paying those taxes thanks to writing off more than $900 million in losses back in 1995.
Clinton cast Trump as a careless businessman, a direct affront at his campaign's selling point that he knows how to fix the country because of his business acumen.
“How anyone can lose a dollar, let alone a billion dollars, in the casino industry is beyond me," she said with a smile, casually leaning onto the podium.
After he lost the money, Clinton claimed, "he didn't lift a finger to help protect his employees, or all the small businesses and contractors he hired."
"They all got hammered while he was busy with his accountants trying to figure out how he could keep living like a billionaire," she said.
She also chided Trump for refusing to release his tax returns himself, and called for a federal law to compel major party nominees to release their returns.
And the former first lady attacked the Trump campaign's defense of his lack of tax liability. Trump's allies have claimed the deduction is standard practice.
"What kind of genius loses a billion dollars in a single year?" Clinton responded with a laugh, after posing the Trump' campaign's defense.
"This is Trump to a T. He’s taken corporate excess and made a business model out of it. He abuses his power, games the system, puts his own interests ahead of the country. It’s Trump first and everyone else last."
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