An outrageous claim by Donald Trump is nothing new. It’s how his campaign team handles it the next day that has taken precedent this election cycle. The rationale from Trump surrogates such as Chris Christie, Kellyanne Conway or even (shockingly) Scott Baio is the most fascinating, as they do their best to try to spin their fearless leader’s rhetoric. And in some instances, they get tangled up and make matters worse. Jimmy Kimmel played the media mogul at his own game, by saying his absurd spin game could work.
On Monday, Kimmel brought up The New York Times‘ discovery of some Trump tax records. As we’ve heard, Trump reportedly declared a $916 million loss on his income tax in 1995, which legally allowed him to avoid paying federal income tax for 18 years. As is typical of his team, Trump spun this incident into a positive:
I know our complex tax laws better than anyone who has ever run for president and am the only one who can fix them. #failing@nytimes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 2, 2016
Kimmel seemed to find this assertion absurd, saying “he knows the laws very well from trying to get around them” and that he is wearing the media’s discovery as a “badge of honor.” The late night host then joked the campaign should run with this as a campaign ad and then highlighted the many topics Trump has flip-flopped on over the years.
It’s a pretty spot-on take about the Trump spin machine, but it kind of feels a bit overdue. Trump’s comments seem to be outweighing parody at this point, as the latest comedic takes on Trump almost appear to be tame compared to what we are witnessing in reality.
