Trump Griped Americans Weren't Paying Enough Taxes In 2012

When it comes to the president, there's always a tweet that can come back to bite.
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Irony, thy name is Donald Trump.

Although the self-proclaimed billionaire reportedly paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and nothing in some previous years, he was griping to “Fox & Friends” back in 2012 that his fellow Americans weren’t paying enough.

A video clip from that year unearthed by Media Matters For America editor John Whitehouse features the then-future president railing against a tax system that he said allowed low-income Americans to pay less in taxes than the wealthy.

That was a big talking point during the 2012 presidential campaign after then-Republican nominee Mitt Romney released tax returns showing he paid an effective 14.1% tax rate.

In the “Fox & Friends” clip, co-host Steve Doocy pointed out that half of the country doesn’t pay federal income tax and tossed this softball to Trump: “Is that fair?”

“No, it’s not,” Trump responded. “It’s even more than that, as I understand it, and it’s not fair,” he said.

Roll the video!

A little context: During the 2012 campaign, Romney was secretly recorded telling an audience of donors that 47% of then-President Barack Obama’s supporters “believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing.”

Trump apparently had a problem with that, based on tweets he posted that year.

Trump also seemed miffed that Obama paid what he considered to be an insufficient amount of tax on his presidential salary, adding, without irony: “Do as I say not as I do.”

Obama in 2011 paid $162,074 in federal taxes on gross income of $789,674, according to the return he released that year.

Trump has broken his promises to release his own taxes, but The New York Times reported on Sunday that he paid no federal income taxes that year.

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