Hours after signing the massive GOP tax cuts into law on Friday, President Trump told ultra-wealthy members of Mar-a-Lago that “you all just got a lot richer,” CBS News reported Sunday morning.
Trump reportedly made the comments to a group of friends eating dinner at his exclusive Florida club, where membership costs a cool $200,000 and annual fees run to $14,000.
In the past few months, Trump has made halfhearted efforts to assure Americans that the richest Americans — and he in particular — would not be rewarded by the Republican tax bill.
“The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan. We are looking for the middle class and we are looking for jobs — jobs being the economy,” Trump said in September.
“This is going to cost me a fortune,” he claimed in November. “This is not good for me.”
But Americans weren’t buying that line, with good reason: It’s bunk.
While it’s true that most Americans will see a small tax cut next year, the richest of the rich will see the vast bulk of the bill’s benefits over the course of the next decade.
And between changes to the estate tax, rules that disproportionately benefit commercial real-estate companies like Trump’s, and other provisions, the president stands to enrich himself to the tune of millions of dollars per year. Precisely how much is impossible to know, since the president continues to refuse to release his tax returns.
Between his proudly plutocratic comments at Mar-a-Lago and reports that he’d made multiple outwardly racist remarks in the Oval Office, it’s a good weekend to remember that despite his mendacious reputation, President Trump has the capacity to be completely candid about his true beliefs.
