Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every
Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most
Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more
Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud
Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Laura Davison is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg News tax reporters. She's got She's covered the tax
Speaker 1: angle and President Trump's taxes from virtually every which angle,
Speaker 1: from Deutsche Bank to all of the other large financial institutions.
Speaker 1: Her latest story on the Bloomberg Terminal. The Bloomberg Terminal
Speaker 1: says Manutian rejects House Democrats demand for Trump's tax returns.
Speaker 1: I mean surprising no one, right, Laura, No, No, certainly,
Speaker 1: we we knew this was coming pretty much from when
Speaker 1: a month ago, when Neil first made this request, Neil
Speaker 1: being the richie Neil of the Chairman of Ways and
Speaker 1: Means Committee. There's been a polite back and forth, a
Speaker 1: series of letters, and now we're sort of entering this
Speaker 1: new phase. Manutian has said no, a uh, not gonna
Speaker 1: hand these over, and now it's really up to Kneel
Speaker 1: of you know, does he Sue does the issue with subpoena,
Speaker 1: and then that of almost of course, is going to
Speaker 1: go to the courts and play out over several months
Speaker 1: of not years. Laura Davison is Bloomberg News tax reporter.
Speaker 1: I love how you characterized that there's been these polite letters.
Speaker 1: It's only in Washington where the president tweets whatever he wants.
Speaker 1: Lawmakers go on cable and say whatever they want. But
Speaker 1: then they have this like very formal, this formality of
Speaker 1: like correspondence where they send these letters back and forth.
Speaker 1: It's like just pick up the phone. But it is
Speaker 1: interesting because no one, no one, not even Democrats, thought
Speaker 1: that the president was gonna say, okay, you guys asked here,
Speaker 1: here are my tax returns. I only campaign and won
Speaker 1: a presidential election without releasing them. So now all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I'm going to change my mind. What is
Speaker 1: this really about? Surely Democrats don't think that he's just
Speaker 1: going to hand over his tax returns. Why are they
Speaker 1: being so persistent. Well, for one, they have a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure from their base saying look, you know, we
Speaker 1: need to see what's going going on. We need to
Speaker 1: see how he's earning money from the Trump hotel, from
Speaker 1: all of US businesses that he hasn't fully relinquished control of,
Speaker 1: and so they've kind of got themselves locked into this
Speaker 1: this angle right now that there is still some skepticism
Speaker 1: from Democrats. Know, even Neil who's been in charge of
Speaker 1: this whole process, has been very deliberate, very slow moving,
Speaker 1: wanted to make sure he had all his legal angles
Speaker 1: tied up. And I think there's some concern, you know,
Speaker 1: with all of the different investigations into the president, that
Speaker 1: Democrats look like they're overreaching. So this is the balance
Speaker 1: that Pelosi is always trying to manage of. You know,
Speaker 1: how are we you know, showing that we're putting pressure
Speaker 1: on the president and and and appealing to to Democratic
Speaker 1: voters that are really fired up, but also you know,
Speaker 1: not turning away some of those voters that were in
Speaker 1: the middle that they're going to want to pick up.
Speaker 1: Is remarkable. I mean, it truly is remarkable. And I
Speaker 1: think so often we lose sight of why there was
Speaker 1: a time when Republicans we're calling for the release of
Speaker 1: of folks tax returns, including private citizen Donald Trump when
Speaker 1: he was running for president, but but also for Democrats,
Speaker 1: and the issue really here is is to make sure
Speaker 1: that our elected leaders correct me if I'm wrong. Law
Speaker 1: to make sure that our elected leaders aren't beholden to
Speaker 1: any foreign companies or foreign governments. And that is why
Speaker 1: people want the tax tax returns, right. I mean, it
Speaker 1: really has a less to do with who's occupying a
Speaker 1: position of power and more to just say, Okay, you
Speaker 1: know this government had this investment, so maybe they have
Speaker 1: this year, So why not just have a law that
Speaker 1: says that they that they would get financial clearance from
Speaker 1: the intelligence community as opposed to just pestering for these
Speaker 1: and hammering for these tax returns. That's certainly one one
Speaker 1: way that they could go about it. You know, Democrats
Speaker 1: have been really focused on this you know, oversight bill
Speaker 1: that they want to work on that that would require
Speaker 1: a release of ten years of tax returns. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways you could you could skin
Speaker 1: this cat in terms of making sure that that people
Speaker 1: who are you know, in positions of power, occupying the
Speaker 1: White House, you know, are not beholden to any foreign
Speaker 1: government or or have you know, lots of debt that
Speaker 1: would behold them to some specific business interest. I think
Speaker 1: that the thing here that Democrats are really focusing on
Speaker 1: is you know, we want the public to see and
Speaker 1: that the voters can see for themselves, and then they're
Speaker 1: not just you know, taking it from from some other source.
Speaker 1: You know. Yesterday on our other Bloomberg radio show, sound
Speaker 1: on UH, we were talking with the Republican and Democratic
Speaker 1: strategists and how Democrats are really just trying to paint
Speaker 1: this picture of a culture of corruption and that corruption
Speaker 1: message is what they're hoping will fuel them into the
Speaker 1: next cycle. And Republicans, as you mentioned, large, say bring
Speaker 1: it on, because we're gonna say we're gonna fight back
Speaker 1: and say that you're overreaching. So it's it's it is
Speaker 1: interesting to see how these data points all aligned into
Speaker 1: the picture of I think most Americans and either party
Speaker 1: are saying that's how business gets done in Washington, regardless
Speaker 1: of the political party. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm June Brosso. This is Bloomberg m HM.