Analysis: Trump May Have Had the Worst Week in Presidential Campaign History
by Benjy Sarlin and Alex Seitz-Wald
nbcnews.com
October didn't wait 24 hours before delivering a surprise. It came in an envelope delivered to the New York Times containing portions of Donald Trump's tax returns, which he has been refusing to release. Political attacks are only really damaging when they confirm an already existing narrative. Mike Dukakis was seen as too weak to be commander-in-chief when he rode in a tank with an oversized helmet, Dan Quayle was thought to be slow-witted when he misspelled "potato," and Mitt Romney was painted as a cartoon Monopoly Man before the "47 percent" tape dropped.
In what must rank among the worst weeks of any recent presidential campaign, Donald Trump managed to play into almost every one of Democrats' talking points about him.
The New York Times story alone, which both reported that Trump declared he had lost a staggering $916 million in 1995 tax forms, and that experts believe that loss could have allowed him to pay no federal income taxes for up to 18 years, fed into three lines of attack that Hillary Clinton had used to needle him in Monday's debate.
One: That his refusal to release his taxes suggested he was concealing something important. Two: That his returns might show his business acumen was overstated. Three: That he paid little or no taxes despite his vast wealth.
And it lent credence to her larger argument that Trump is a heartless scrooge who left a trail of financial destruction on his path to wealth, and who according to the Times even refused to check off a box on his tax form to donate to a veterans' memorial fund.
As if that wasn't enough, Trump has a long history of both bragging about his efforts to avoid paying taxes while shaming others for paying too little.
But Trump didn't need an outside story to damage his campaign. He was busy having a live meltdown onstage in Pennsylvania at the very moment the news dropped Saturday night. Already behaving erratically since his debate on Monday, Trump imitated Clinton's pneumonia-induced collapse from last month and fired off the most grotesque, personal, and fact-free attack at the nominee yet.
"Hillary Clinton's only loyalty is to her financial contributors and to herself," Trump said of the first female major party nominee. "I don't even think she's loyal to Bill, you wanna know the truth. And really folks really, why should she be, right? Why should she be?"
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