--- title: Donald Trump Is 'Genius' for Not Paying Taxes: Surrogates description: Surrogates said that Trump possibly not paying federal income taxes for almost 20 years was both brilliant and responsible canonical: https://time.com/4515946/donald-trump-surrogates-rudy-giuliani-chris-christie-genius-taxes/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-10-02T16:05:02.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T18:23:47.000Z article:section: Politics og:title: Surrogates Say Donald Trump Is a 'Genius' If He Didn't Pay Income Tax og:description: Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani had the nominee's back og:url: https://time.com/4515946/donald-trump-surrogates-rudy-giuliani-chris-christie-genius-taxes/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8e4d85f2a19424a/6988a85897cdff68dd6ae019/christie-giuliani-surrogates-defend-trump-taxes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 3000 og:image:height: 1688 og:image:alt: christie giuliani surrogates defend trump taxes og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Surrogates Say Donald Trump Is a 'Genius' If He Didn't Pay Income Tax twitter:description: Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani had the nominee's back twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8e4d85f2a19424a/6988a85897cdff68dd6ae019/christie-giuliani-surrogates-defend-trump-taxes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Surrogates Say Donald Trump Is a 'Genius' If He Didn't Pay Income Tax > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters.  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Updated: Dec 13, 2023 6:23 PM UTCPublished: Oct 2, 2016 4:05 PM UTC  Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (right) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie attend the Presidential Debate at Hofstra University on September 26, 2016 in Hempstead, New York. Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani (right) and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie attend the Presidential Debate at Hofstra University on September 26, 2016 in Hempstead, New York. Win McNamee—Getty Images  by [Julia Zorthian](https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian Updated: Dec 13, 2023 6:23 PM UTCPublished: Oct 2, 2016 4:05 PM UTC Donald Trump surrogates took to the Sunday morning talk shows [to insist](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-taxes-chris-christie-rudy-giuliani-229013) that [the businessman possibly not paying federal income taxes](http://time.com/4515840/donald-trump-tax-records-loss/) for almost 20 years would have been both brilliant and responsible. Less than 24 hours after the New York _Times_ reported on Trump’s partial tax return from 1995, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani both defended the Republican presidential nominee’s use of the tax code. The document showed Trump had claimed losses of $916 million from his casinos in Atlantic City, New York’s Plaza Hotel and an airline — losses that could offset future taxes owed, under Internal Revenue Service guidelines, according to the _Times._ “There’s no one who’s shown more genius in their way to maneuver around the tax code,” Christie said on _Fox News Sunday,_ reports _Politico_. On CNN’s _State of the Union,_ Giuliani agreed with him: “The headline should have been, ‘Donald Trump takes advantage of legal provisions in tax code.” In fact, both blamed any of Trump’s interactions with the tax code on the tax code itself. Christie went as far as to suggest that Trump’s behavior illuminates the “mess” that the tax code is right now, and Trump’s experience with that mess means he is the “person best positioned” to clean it up. And if the billionaire did avoid giving the country money in the form of federal tax income that Americans with taxable income generally have to pay, Giuliani added that he did so out of duty. “This is a perfectly legal application of the tax code,” Giuliani told _This Week_ on ABC. “And he would’ve been fool not to take advantage of it. Not only that, he would’ve probably breached his fiduciary duty to his investors, to his business.” \[[_Politico_](http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/donald-trump-taxes-chris-christie-rudy-giuliani-229013)\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4515946/donald-trump-surrogates-rudy-giuliani-chris-christie-genius-taxes/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4515946/donald-trump-surrogates-rudy-giuliani-chris-christie-genius-taxes/"},"headline":"Surrogates Say Donald Trump Is a 'Genius' If He Didn't Pay Income Tax","datePublished":"2016-10-02T16:05:02.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T18:23:47.000Z","description":"Chris Christie and Rudy Giuliani had the presidential nominee's back","url":"https://time.com/4515946/donald-trump-surrogates-rudy-giuliani-chris-christie-genius-taxes/","keywords":["2016 Election","2016 Election","Donald Trump"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8e4d85f2a19424a/6988a85897cdff68dd6ae019/christie-giuliani-surrogates-defend-trump-taxes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta8e4d85f2a19424a/6988a85897cdff68dd6ae019/christie-giuliani-surrogates-defend-trump-taxes.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"christie giuliani surrogates defend trump taxes","caption":"christie giuliani surrogates defend trump taxes","creditText":"Win McNamee—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/2016-election/","name":"2016 Election"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4515946/donald-trump-surrogates-rudy-giuliani-chris-christie-genius-taxes/","name":"Surrogates Say Donald Trump Is a 'Genius' If He Didn't Pay Income Tax"}}]}] ```