'So pathetic': Trump uses insulting and foulmouthed hot mic rant to impress voters
Former President Donald Trump was caught on hot mic this week while driving in a golf cart, ranting about President Joe Biden as a "pile of c---" and proclaiming that Vice President Kamala Harris, who is his most obvious replacement if the ongoing media and party panic over his health causes him to drop out, is "so f---ing bad."
But Trump doesn't appear remotely embarrassed at his behavior. On the contrary, he is now using footage from that video in a campaign ad, according to The Daily Beast.
According to that report, Trump posted a still shot from that video on Truth Social, where he "did not focus on what he said about the Democratic ticket for the 2024 election, but wrote on all capitals, 'END TAX ON TIPS,' because much of the action in the video was him unrolling two notes from a roll and handing them off-camera to — presumably — his caddy."
“She’s so bad. She’s so pathetic,” Trump adds, then appears to say, “She’s so f---ing bad.”
In response, the Biden campaign told the Daily Beast, "What is bad is taking away women’s rights, what is bad is losing an election and encouraging a violent mob to attack the Capitol, what is bad is assaulting women, what is bad is not paying your taxes, what is bad is rooting for our economy to fail."
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Trump first announced his idea to eliminate income taxes on tips during a rally earlier this year in Las Vegas — a city where unionized service workers notoriously hold massive power to decide elections in the key battleground state of Nevada — and since then, his supporters have tried to make it a marquee policy issue, with some GOP lawmakers even posting images of restaurant receipts on which they wrote "Trump 2024" and "no tax on tips."
Notably, a Culinary Union official in Nevada has blasted this as an unserious proposal.
It's unclear exactly how it would work in practice, but many low-income service workers don't even pay income tax in the first place because they make so little that various exemptions and credits offset their tax liability.
Therefore, it could actually amount to a tax break that flows mostly to wealthier, upscale service staff, at a $250 billion price tag over 10 years.
At other times, Trump has gone even further, suggesting that the federal income tax be eliminated altogether and replaced with tariffs on imported goods — an idea experts warn would destroy the federal budget and turbocharge inflation.