Home U.S In Las Vegas, Trump Calls Harris a ‘Copycat’ Over ‘No Tax on Tips’ Plan

In Las Vegas, Trump Calls Harris a ‘Copycat’ Over ‘No Tax on Tips’ Plan

0
In Las Vegas, Trump Calls Harris a ‘Copycat’ Over ‘No Tax on Tips’ Plan

Former President Donald J. Trump on Friday fumed over the fact that when it comes to exempting tips from being taxed, he and his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, are on the same page.

Mr. Trump, before a gathering of supporters at a Las Vegas restaurant, complained that Ms. Harris had stolen his idea and sought to cast her as an opportunist who was pandering to service industry workers by cribbing from one of his signature proposals.

“She’s a copycat,” Mr. Trump said. “She’s a flip-flopper, you know. She’s the greatest flip-flopper in history. She went from communism to capitalism in about two weeks.”

A Harris campaign spokesman declined to comment. This month, while in Las Vegas herself, Ms. Harris said she would seek to end federal income taxes on tips if she were elected. Mr. Trump first floated the idea in June, and it quickly garnered bipartisan support.

He has publicly stewed over her embrace of the plan, especially in Nevada, a battleground state that Mr. Trump lost in 2016 and 2020.

Before President Biden withdrew from the race in late July, Mr. Trump had appeared to be on a trajectory to end his electoral drought in the desert — where one of his hotels towers over the Strip. Mr. Biden, whose campaign called the “no tax on tips” overture a “wild campaign promise,” had been trailing Mr. Trump by an average of seven percentage points in Nevada.

But Ms. Harris closed the polling gap in the state to a single point among likely voters in a recent poll from The New York Times and Siena College.

Mr. Trump and Ms. Harris have both been frequent visitors to Nevada, where tourism rules, and they have zeroed in on service industry workers, who rely heavily on tips. Nevada has the highest concentration of tipped workers of any state.

Mr. Trump on Friday lobbed personal attacks against Ms. Harris, who accepted her party’s nomination in a speech on Thursday at its convention in Chicago. Ms. Harris, in those remarks, asserted that Mr. Trump’s overall tax plan would increase costs for middle-class families by almost $4,000 a year.

In Las Vegas, Mr. Trump continued to mispronounce her given name and mocked her for having thanked her supporters several times at the start of her address on Thursday.

“She mentioned thank you about 50 times,” Mr. Trump said. He repeated “thank you” about a dozen times as his supporters laughed, and added, “I said, ‘What the hell is wrong with her?’”

He also propped up a former opponent who, shortly before Mr. Trump’s event, suspended his bid and endorsed him: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “He’s really a terrific guy,” Mr. Trump said.

But when asked after the event if Mr. Kennedy would have a role in his administration if he were elected, Mr. Trump would not say. The two have long been friendly but sparred on social media when it appeared that Mr. Kennedy, the liberal scion and a purveyor of conspiracy theories, might cut into Mr. Trump’s support.

Mr. Trump traced his support for the “no tax on tips” plan not to a think tank or white paper, but to a conversation he said he had with a waitress in Las Vegas who complained about taxes.

The proposal has resonated on both sides of the aisle. House Speaker Mike Johnson, Republican of Louisiana, pledged to “pass it as soon as we can,” and the G.O.P. incorporated it into its official party platform. Nevada’s senators, Jacky Rosen and Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats, endorsed a bipartisan plan to exempt tips from federal income taxes.

Some economists have expressed skepticism over the concept, which they say could disadvantage middle-class workers who do not make tips.

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here