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House Committee Posts Trump's Tax Returns from 2015 Through 2020; Tax Returns Show Trump Had Foreign Bank Accounts While President; Trump Paid More in Foreign Taxes Than in U.S. Taxes in 2017; House GOP Dissents: Release of Returns Not Needed to Fix Audit Rule; Full Crowds Return for New Year's Eve in Times Square; Officials Closely Monitoring Surge in China as Restrictions Ease. Aired 2:30-3p ET

Aired December 30, 2022 - 14:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[14:31:53]

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: Just about everything surrounding former President Trump is unprecedented. And now to the unprecedented move by Congress in the name of presidential transparency.

House Democrats just released six years of Donald Trump's tax returns, which he had refused to do since 2015, unlike every other president since Gerald Ford.

In its pursuit of getting his returns, the committee found the IRS failed to do mandatory audits of his taxes while he was president.

The returns show Trump reported tens of millions of dollars in losses and that he held foreign bank accounts while in office.

Let me go to CNN national correspondent, Kristen Holmes.

Kristen, let's start with those foreign accounts. What are you learning about those?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, let's pull them up here. I want to show exactly what they looked like.

One of them is going to stand out in particular to our viewers. If you look at 2015, he had accounts in the United Kingdom, Ireland and China. In 2016, U.K., Ireland, China and St. Maartin. Then, U.K., Ireland and China. And 2018, through 2020, only U.K.

There's obviously one location there that is pretty interesting and that is the fact that he had bank accounts in China while he was serving in office.

Now this is raising some questions. It's going to continue raising questions as we look into this.

When was this bank account opened? What were Trump's business interests in this country? And is there a chance that it could have impacted the political side of relations between the U.S. and China?

And this goes to another finding that we saw within these returns and that was how much foreign taxes that Trump paid.

When we look at 2017, in particular, this was a year in which Trump paid only $750 in U.S. income tax. That same year, he spent nearly a million dollars in foreign taxes.

Now, the reason why this is of note is that, yes, it is completely legitimate and expected that he would be spending money in these foreign countries because he's a businessman, because he has businesses across the world.

But what is so interesting is that this is shedding light on where those business interests actually lie. And we're looking at countries like India, China, Turkey, Mexico.

And this is giving us insight into where his businesses were focused at a time that he was serving in the White House.

There's two only findings that I want to point to here. One you mentioned, the charitable donations. What we have learned is that over the years in his presidency, his charitable contributions went down and down, further and further.

So in 2017, we're looking at $1.8 million. And 2018, 2019, around $500,000, and 2020, zero dollars.

There's a reason why that zero dollars is interesting. It correlates with another zero, and that is how much income tax he paid in 2020.

And this is something tax experts are talking about. The reason being, that that zero in 2020 has signaled to a lot of tax experts that Trump was having actual business failures.

You have to remember that some of this, as you said, is carrying these large losses over to reduce the taxes he's paying. When they see that zero in 2020, they're saying that could come from real business failures, which we're going to be looking into.

[14:35:05]

Also, it's interesting that it lines up with another thing that would have been a deduction in 2020, which is zero dollars in the charitable contributions.

One last thing that I'm going to point out here -- this is something that has tax experts raising questions -- which is how Trump claimed his businesses expenses and what they were making.

For example, I'm going to give a specific example here. In 2017, one of Donald Trump's companies, DJT Aerospace, that operates his helicopter, they claimed that they made $42,965. That is a very specific number of income that they claimed.

Then they claimed that they spent that exact same amount in expenses, meaning, that there was nothing left, zero, to tax.

We spoke to one expert who said this was statistically impossible. So something raising a lot of questions there.

And something that the joint taxation committee, one of them, is going to have people looking at, or saying that auditors should be looking at when we look at these returns.

SIDNER: Talking about taxes and going through all of those numbers makes me itch.

Kristen Holmes, thank you so much for doing all of that and explaining it all to us.

Joining me now, so I don't have to go through it and do the math, Dorothy Brown, a tax law professor at Georgetown University Law. And CNN political analyst, Margaret Talev, is back.

Thank you, both.

Dorothy, I wanted to ask you, there's a lot here. You know, you're quite familiar with tax returns as many of us are. But you've got the drop on it.

How have you seen what has been released to the public so far, anything stand out?

DOROTHY BROWN, TAX LAW PROFESSOR, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW CENTER: So I think about this is who is the biggest loser, right? Is it Donald Trump because he has his losses and his businesses over here, he then brings into his tax returns, reducing the amount he's legally obligated to pay.

Is it the American taxpayer who don't have these businesses who they can use to reduce the taxes that they pay? Making it the -- the American taxpayer pay their fair share while Donald Trump doesn't seem to be paying his fair share.

And then Melania Trump, who signed a joint return for her husband, if he's found to owe extra taxes, she's on the hook for it.

When I think of who the biggest loser is, I think it's the American taxpayers. The Trump tax returns show the unfairness of a system designed for those with the most to pay the least.

SIDNER: I want to follow up with you there. Donald Trump, it shows, paid more in foreign taxes than he did U.S. taxes in one of those years, in 2017.

And in response to criticism, he said this is -- you know, the tax returns show he was, quote, "able to use depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive for creating thousands of jobs," and as he put it, "magnificent structures and enterprises."

Is this simply a case of Donald Trump using the loopholes that exist in the tax code to get an advantage? BROWN: Well, first of all, all of these losses are not attributable to

depreciation. But more importantly, taxpayers have the burden of proof.

He's said he has all of these losses, but there's no paper trail or no evidence that he can sustain his burden of proof.

For example, what Kristen said in the segment a few minutes ago, there's an example where the item -- the income is exactly equal to the deductions. That's just not plausible.

But if it were, he would have records to prove it.

So I don't believe he can prove that he's eligible for all these losses that he then used to lower the taxes to.

SIDNER: All right.

Margaret, now to you on the political side of things.

Minutes ago, the Republicans have sent out a dissent, pointing out Democrats did not need to release Trump's returns to change the problems with the presidential audit program.

We talked about the fact that he had not initially been audited as is per normal. That didn't happen until someone from the Democratic Party pointed out that they wanted to see those audits and then the audit was done several years into his presidency.

Is this a valid point from the Republicans, that this needed to be put out to the public?

MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I think this is where the conversation is going to go now in the next couple of days is, whether Democrats overreached and privacy concerns, efforts to scare Americans into believing all of their private financial records are going to become public.

All of this really makes the case for Congress to actually put into legislation and pass something mandating that presidential candidates and presidents will release their tax information.

You can see from what's been released the reasons for it, to understand potential foreign policy conflicts with the president, to understand how tax policy during a presidency impacted that president's own tax returns.

[14:40:05]

Without seeing any of this, we would have no visibility on then- President Trump, on 2024 candidate, Donald Trump.

But here's the problem. The reason why tax records are private to begin with is, as I understand it, from post-Watergate reforms in the 1970s, and it's not because they were afraid that Congress was going to release presidents' tax returns. They were afraid that presidents were going to go after political

enemies through their private tax documents. And so this change was made to protect the privacy.

I think -- my colleague at "Axios" has new reporting we're coming out with this afternoon that, as Republicans in the House were preparing before the holiday recess for the release of these records, they had a meeting in a conference.

And there are divisions inside the Republican caucus about whether to now weaponize this against President Biden and his family and their financial records or not.

So this is going to become a big political topic.

And I think all of that is really going to come back to whether Congress has the encourage and the ability to actually act and make a law that can stand as a policy impacting presidents only moving forward.

SIDNER: All the other presidents since Ford have released their tax records. So we will see what this does going forward and if a law is put in place to make that a thing you must do in order to run.

Dorothy Brown, Margaret Talev, thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Now New Year's Eve in Times Square. Guess what? It's returning to full capacity for the first time since COVID-19 grinded the world to a halt. Up next, the NYPD is revealing its security preps.

But first, as we head to break, a stunning look at a partially frozen Niagara Falls. Enjoy.

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[14:46:28]

SIDNER: Know what this is? The 12-foot diameter Waterford crystal spangled ball that will drop at the stroke of midnight tomorrow night -- wow, that came fast -- in New York City.

For the first time in three years, full capacity crowds are expected in Times Square to ring in 2023 with no pandemic restrictions.

CNN's Gloria Pazmino is out there checking things out.

Gloria, lots of last-minute preps under way as we expect. Looks like lots of people out there already. What's happening down there at this hour?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sara, I don't know about you, but I love New Year's. It's a fresh start. Slate is clean.

And right here is where the biggest party in the entire world will take place tomorrow.

You were talking about the crystal ball. That thing is 11,000 pounds. And it's going to come down tomorrow at the stroke of midnight.

On top of that, a ton of confetti will fall on revelers here tomorrow night.

We are expecting to see big crowds. The past two years, they've had restrictions for COVID. All of those will be lifted. No restrictions or requirements for anyone coming here tomorrow.

Mayor Eric Adams just held a briefing a short time ago, along with law enforcement officials here, talking about the public safety aspect of this event.

This is a massive operation, thousands of people, as I said, in what is a really, really tight space.

But public safety is the priority and they have a plan in place.

Just listen to the mayor talking a little bit about tomorrow's operation.

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MAYOR ERIC ADAMS (D-NEW YORK CITY): The NYPD and our other local public safety apparatus, they're going to have a visible presence. But at the same time, they're going to be among the crowd so that people don't know exactly who is present and who is here.

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PAZMINO: Now, Sara, if you are watching this and you're telling yourself, you know what, I think I'm going to go to Times Square tomorrow and ringing the New Year standing next to thousands and thousands of people, it's important for you to know, there are a lot of rules. No umbrellas, no alcohol, no backpacks.

There will be screenings of every single person that comes through. That is part of the public safety plan so that this iconic event can go off without a hitch -- Sara?

SIDNER: Gloria, I love that you love New Year's Eve. I am more of a Grinch and usually stay in. The crowds are too much for me. But it will be fun to watch any way you slice it.

Gloria Pazmino, thank you so much for that report.

Don't miss a second of the festivities tomorrow night. This is what I'm doing. CNN live from Times Square with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen starts at 8:00 p.m. Eastern. You can be in your pajamas and watch it.

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Be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) SIDNER: At least three school districts in New Jersey say they will be requiring masks in schools when classes resume next week. The move is driven by a nationwide triple threat of RSV, flu and COVID.

It was this time last year the Omicron wave was just taking off. Now heading into a New Year, public health and infectious disease experts are emphasizing the importance of monitoring for new variants, especially given the surge of cases that we now know of in China.

CNN's senior medical correspondent, Elizabeth Cohen, is joining us once again.

Elizabeth, how concerned are experts about new variants potentially developing in China and spreading?

DR. ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN SENIOR MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: They are concerned. They're not panicked, but they are for sure concern.

You talked about this growing number of cases, this surge in China. Viruses love surges. It gives them an opportunity -- each and every person they infect. It's a new opportunity to mutate, to become something bigger, better, stronger.

Also, they might mutate into something that's not so strong, but they might mutate into something strong.

So what each country does is they monitor the variants in their country, and they raise their hand and say, wait a second, I'm seeing something bad here.

[14:55:05]

That's what happened with Omicron in South Africa. The authorities there said something funny's going on here. They raised their hands a year ago.

Let's look at the sequencing that's been done in China. The way that it works is you swab someone's nose and you analyze it and you post that sequence to an online Web site so everyone can see it.

So in the past six months, the U.S. has posted more than 576,000 sequences. And more is better. You want to know what's out there.

The U.K., more than 123,000. China, 412. And China is larger than both of those countries. This is where the concern is coming from.

And so that's why, starting January 5th, the U.S. is telling people flying in from China, whether you're a U.S. citizen or not, if you are flying in, you need to get a test.

You need to get a COVID test, either antigen or PCR, no more than two days before your flight.

And then at seven U.S. airports for select flights, including hundreds every week from China, you can then volunteer to get tested and genomic sequenced if necessary. Hopefully, that will help keep track, but it's not foolproof at all --

Sara?

SIDNER: Elizabeth Cohen, thank you so much for that update.

A lot of parents are dealing with RSV and the flu and COVID with that. It's a whole big mess. So we hope the people heed the warning.

Now to police in Idaho. Setting up right now to hold a press conference soon after an arrest has been made, finally, in the murder of those four college students. We have new details ahead.

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