Time. The irs does not treat me well. It is important to note nbc news has not seen any of the documents related to this reporting. This has been a contentious topic for the president for years now. Hes fought hard for these very documents to not be released. The times said it obtained papers from people who were legally allowed to access them. Tonight well break down this reporting with nbc news colleagues and analysts who are well versed in mr. Trumps finances and his presidency. Well also hear from the president s former lawyer, michael cohen. And well discuss the significance of this reporting 37 days before the election. National polling shows the president is fighting an uphill battle against former Vice President joe biden. Lets begin this hour with james carville. Autoes a democratic strategist and msnbc political analyst. James, welcome. Thank you. Good to be here, joshua. What do you think is the top line of this report . Were talking about an extensive it prints out to 47 pages and theres a lot of detail her. What stood out the most from the report. The times says they will keep on reporting this. This is just the original story. Were going to have this another two or three weeks. When you combine that with awful polling numbers the president had this morning from polls that were coming in, national polls, statewide polls, battleground polls, you see this is a man under enormous stress. He knows hes going to lose the election. He knows hes in terrible legal jeopardy. In my opinion hes trying to negotiate a way he can leave with a pardon from new york state authorities and somehow live the rest of his life out in some kind of peace. But hes in a world of political trouble, and i suspect hes in a world of legal trouble here. Weve got more and more of this coming between now and not just the election but all the way past the election. I wonder what it looks like to you in terms of a political strat gid with joe biden. Well get more into the details of this economic report in a second. The debate is tuesday. This definitely changes the complexion of the debate. This may well change what the topics are, what Chris Wallace asks first. Joe biden has to make decisions about how he wants to message on this, between now and then, and how he wants to message a path forward should he become president in light of this reporting. What do you think is his best bet right new . So joshua, hes been setting this up. I dont think he knew the story was coming. It was like a working guy from scranton against a rich guy from manhattan. So hes been hammering hess kind of middle class themes home during the election. This is not new. This fits right into what joe biden has been saying. But ive noticed hes had a real focus on this kind of middle class message in his campaign in the moment of september. So i believe the people in wilmington are not just ecstatic by this story. You would expect to say this, but this is one of the best days a president ial campaign could possibly have and this story fits right into it while people around the country believe, apparently correctly, they are schmucks out there working, paying taxes, doing what they can to make ends meet and people take these writeoffs. He gives his taught money and he writes that off. Its just more and more analysis. Who knows where this is going to end but i cant imagine it ends in a very pretty place for President Trump. I really cant. I can also see republican strategists, member of the Trump Campaign, Republican Voters saying, see, this is just another attempt by the New York Times to tear down President Trump. They have been trying to do it for four years. The whole russia hoax, everything about they didnt listen to us about the russia hoax and Robert Mueller and peter strzok and all of these efforts to try to bring down President Trump. This is just a hail mary pass from democrats and liberal media cronies to bring down someone they know is going to win in november. First of all, New York Times as much as any institution helped elect President Trump. Thats a fact. The second thing is they are going to say that about anything that happens but this is something that the public had the suspicion of anyway. This confirms an existing suspicion that people have, is that rich people play by a different set of rules than they do. Thats why the story is going to hurt more than some of the other stories because they will sit there and say, yeah, we know they are right. Of course they are going to run against the times and against the fake news, but this is going to hurt. This gives joe biden if im joe biden, im so much more comfortable tuesday night with this story than i would be without it. You know, there will be pushback and screaming an yelling and gnashing of teeth and wailing and crying. But at the end of the day, this is a bad story for them, a really bad story. Let me pull out one piece of the report that stands out to me. Again, im reading directly from the New York Times report. Just to reiterate in case you missed the top of the program, were reporting from New York Times. Nbc news has not independently seen these documents. Were relaying results of New York Times report. One exert from the report reads, quote, while mr. Trump crisscrossed the country in 2015 describing himself as uniquely qualified to be president because he was, quote, really rich and had, quote, built a great company, his accountants back in new york were busy putting finishing touches on his 2014 tax return. After tabulating all the profits and losses from mr. Trumps various endeavors on form 440 accountants came to line 56 where they had to enter total income tax the candidate was required to pay. They needed space only for a single figure, 0. For mr. Trump that bottom line must look familiar. It was the fourth year in a row he had not paid a penny of federal income taxes. Jameses, what do you make of that passage. Washington post out of 22,211 lies. Thats just another one. No one is surprised by that. Again, were going to keep more and more, the story is going to keep on coming, because they are going to keep on pushing the story out. I go back to repeat myself, in politics on a preexisting thought of suspicion is proven right, that tends to be more damning. I think people sort of figured this was some version of this was true for a long time. Now, the times reporting is wrong and they are able to push back on it and show to the contrary they could come back but i dont think the New York Times is that stupid or careless or that lazy. I really dont. Ive had issues with the times over the years but they arent that dumb, not close. How do you avoid not muddying the message. So many things said about mr. Trump because he says so many things that require debunking and correcting. There are so many points the biden harris ticket will make about the vision if they were running the country instead of the trump pence ticket. How do you decide from a Strategic Perspective where to put your priority. Theres so much to hear right now. Its easy as a voter, even if youve picked your candidate, to be super overwhelmed. Thefy have been on this thin since september, biden a working guy, trump a manhattan millionaire, we had to have a realignment of power in the country where workers had more power and corporations less, rich people less and middle class people more. This fits right into it. What i like about this story, it makes that message, which i think is the winning message, much more attractive than anything else. This should give the Biden Campaign a real chance to hammer home that most essential part of that message, that working people, middle class people on the short end of the stick and people with bigtime account apartmenaccountants manipulate the books. For gods sake please dont get off this message, please dont get off of it. My plea. Stay on this message. Yes. Hammer it home, baby, hammer it home. Its kind of fascinating so much of what the president talked about tonight in his press briefing before and after he was asked about this report had to do with the media and some of the reporting thats been done. He was urging reporters to do more reporting on the investigation into the investigation over the campaigns alleged ties with russia. That was a big topic on some morning shows today and not others, lets leave it at that. He was talking about what the media was talking about. This report refers to the way his media appearances made him wealthy, particularly his seasons on the apprentice on nbc, which brought him a total, according to New York Times, 424. 7 million according to the analysis. James, before i let you go. This feels like a lot of this becomes the story of perception of media, whether the image that you see is actually the person thats there and of the man behind the curtain that maybe youre not supposed to see. Yeah. Maybe we need to talk to msnbc to see if we can get paid a little more. Teasing. You know, it will help. People dont like the media. It will excite some of the people. At the end of the day, this is a crushing story. People have been living with media attacks for a long, long time now. This is a new element. They will push back, and they will say its the liberal media and fake news but its going to penetrate. This is going to again, i come back to the general point, it fits right into what Vice President bidens current message is. They should be able to frame this thing and tee it up pretty good. Democratic strategist james carville, we appreciate you starting us off. Thank you very much. Thank you, josh. Love your show. Appreciate it. Thank you. Lets continue with political Reporter Josh Lederman. Josh, what can you tell us tonight . This is sending shock waves through the white house as they are reacting to this. Obviously the white house knew at least a little bit in advance that this story was going to be coming out because the reporters from the New York Times reached out to the white house for comment on it. The president saying he knew sort of generally this was coming but he didnt know exactly when this was going to drop. Weve heard the response from the white house tonight to essentially dismiss this with a blanket assertion of what the president called total fake news made up, but what we havent seen the president do is say specifically what hes actually disputing. When Nbcs Kelly Odonnell asked the president , okay, you say this is fake news, how much money did you actually pay in federal taxes in those years, the president declined to say. So he wont actually pesify what hes taking issue with. Another troubling part of this that were learning tonight, joshua, is about money that the president and his company continue to receive from overseas company while hes been in office. We remember the president committed during his presidency to not making any new overseas deals, some obvious potential, conflict of interest when hes running u. S. Diplomacy and matters of war and peace. What documents by the New York Times show that the president an his companies continued to receive about 73 million from business deals he had already under way in countries like the philippines, india, turkey. And i think there are two problematic storylines for the president. One is sort of what you were just discussing with james carville, which is this issue of fairness and this idea that i think youll hear from democrats that, you know, the average working class family out there that President Trump says hes fighting for is actually paying quite a bit more in federal taxes than the president is. At least if these documents from the New York Times and this reporting is true and we have no reason to believe its not, even though nbc as you mentioned has not independently seen that. The other potential problem point here, joshua, that i think could be even more tricky for the president in these last few weeks in the election has to do with the way hes viewed by his base. Theres a lot of people who are going to say is anyone really surprised that President Trump was the kind of person who would have finagled his legal documents and finances in a way that minimized paying federal taxes . What this puts a dent in is this notion of President Trump as this selfmade businessman, as somebody who through his own skills with business and deal making was able to amass all of this wealth. What this shows, according to these documents and these tax returns, is that at the same time President Trump was making the representation to the American People that he was making tons and tons of money because of his business prowess, he was telling irs that he was losing money hand over fist. I think that could be a problematic caricature of the president. Losses of 315 million at the golf courses he owned. His Washington Hotel opened in 2016 has shown losses of 55. 5 million through 2015. Trump corporation or Real Estate ServicesCompany Reported losing 134 million since the year 2000. Apparently the president personally bankrolled the losses year after year. Josh lederman, its worth noting this has potentially got some concrete impacts in terms of the way Congressional Democrats are investigating the president. We got a statement tonight from richard neal, chairman of the house ways and Means Committee. They are trying to get the tax returns, too. After Supreme Court weighed in this july, it opened a new avenue for democrats to request the tax returns in a more precise, more specific way. This is not just about clearly about the image of the president , there could be some larger implications here. There absolutely could. Its not lost on us tonight, joshua, that prosecutors in new york have also been trying to get these documents for a long time. Theres been ongoing litigation there and major questions but whether they would be able to get these documents ahead of the election. We dont know whether they will be able to get it but the New York Times apparently did. This information one way or the other has made it out to the public really at the moment americans are deciding who should be the next president with voting already under way in so many parts of the country. This is just one more piece of information. Its an indication, just like weve seen so many former Administration Officials come out just in the final weeks of the election to disown the president , essentially, to speak out against reelecting him. Were seeing that this information that americans, at least a lot of americans want to make an informed decision one way or another is coming to the surface really at this critical moment. Thank you, josh. Nbc political Reporter Josh Lederman joining us live. For those of you diving in were working our way through a New York Times report that details two decades of President Trumps tax returns and details hundreds of millions of business losses laid out in his tax data. It also reports that the president in the year that he took office paid just 750 in taxes, not 750,000 but 750, 750. He spoke tonight at the white house during the press briefing called the story fake, basically said it was another hit job on him by the New York Times and said that the tax returns that might clarify all this are still tied up in an audit. He still maintains that is the reason he cannot release them. That is false. It is wellknown at this point he could release those tax returns if he so desired. Perhaps a few people have quite the perspective of Donald Trumps finances like michael cohen, his former personal attorney. Mr. Cohen joins us on the line. Sir, welcome to the program. Hi, joshua, how are you . Im well. I appreciate you making time for us tonight. I wonder how you view the story in light of something you mentioned on page 94 of your book disloyal. You state mr. Trump got a 10 million refund from the irs. According to the book, and im quoting, forgive me having to clean up the profanity. Can you believe how blanking stupid the irs is. Who would give me a refund of blanking 10 million. They are so stupid, unquote. Mr. Cohen, i assume the New York Times reporting tonight does not surprise you. No, it does not. One of the things i talk quite a bit about in disloyal Donald Trumps entire image and selfworth is based on his inflated actual net worth. Something that this New York Times report is going to do, i truly believe that Donald Trumps financial records are the Rosetta Stone for understanding the depth of his corruption and his crimes. The more its unraveled, the more youre going to see donald trump unravel. Its the reason hes fighting so hard to keep it under wraps. I do want to ask you about one particular passage in the report. Im going to read it, and then id like to get your reaction to it. In the report the times writes, quote, the data contains no new revelations about 130,000 payment to stephanie clifford, the actress who performs as Stormy Daniels. The focus of the subpoena for tax returns and other financial information. Im continuing to report from the times. Quote, mr. Chairman has acknowledged reimbursing his former lawyer michael d. Cohen who made the payoff but the materials contained by