Biden Confronts Trump At Final Debate: "Release Your Tax Returns, Or Stop Talking About Corruption"

At the final presidential debate, Biden said to Trump, “I have released all of my tax returns. 22 years. Go look at them. 22 years of my tax returns. You have not released a single, solitary year of your tax returns.”

President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in the final presidential debate at Belmont University on October 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. | Getty Images
President Donald Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden participate in the final presidential debate at Belmont University on October 22, 2020 in Nashville, Tennessee. | Getty Images

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden sharply criticized President Trump about failing to release his tax returns during the second and final presidential debate, in which the two were asked about foreign relations.

During the debate, which was held live at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, Biden brought up the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani, who has been leading an unsuccessful effort to dig up and release supposed dirt on Biden and his family.

"He's being used as a Russian pawn," Biden said of Giuliani, adding, "He's being fed information that's not true."

Trump then brought up the allegations about Biden’s son, Hunter, that Giuliani has been trying to push for the last week, via a widely debunked New York Post story. Trump and Giuliani have been pushing the narrative that Biden was somehow ethically compromised by his son’s work on the board for a Ukrainian gas company, though that false allegation has also been thoroughly fact-checked. Experts believe Giuliani’s latest attempts are Russian disinformation.

Biden asserted at the debate, "I have not taken a penny from any foreign source ever in my life."

"We learned that this president paid 50 times the tax in China [that he paid in the U.S.],” Biden added, referring to a New York Times report this week that revealed Trump has a secret Chinese bank account and that Trump International Hotels Management L.L.C. paid nearly $200,000 in taxes in China between 2013 and 2015. Another Times report in September revealed that Trump paid just $750 in taxes to the U.S. government in 2016 and 2017.

At the debate, Biden went on to say, "I have released all of my tax returns. 22 years. Go look at them. 22 years of my tax returns. You have not released a single, solitary year of your tax returns. What are you hiding? Why are you unwilling? … Release your tax returns, or stop talking about corruption."

Biden’s federal and state tax returns are available for public view on his website.

Trump’s tax revelations have repeatedly been brought up during Biden’s campaign. During his first in-person campaign rally speech for Biden just yesterday, former President Barack Obama brought up the bombshell Times report about China, asking, “Can you imagine if I had had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection? You think Fox News might’ve been a little concerned about that? They would’ve called me Beijing Barry!”

The Times reporting has followed a lengthy battle between New York prosecutors, House Democrats, and the White House over release and access to the president’s financial records that went all the way to the Supreme Court.