Top Aide: Trump Will Not Released tax Returns.
HARLOW: Welcome back. A top advisor to President Trump said he will not release his tax returns, even after the IRS audit he cited during the campaign is complete.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The White House responded that he is not going to release his tax returns, we litigated this all through the elections, and people didn't care. They voted for him. Let me make this very clear, most Americans are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office not what his look like, and you know full well that President Trump and his family are complying with all the ethical rules, everything they need to do to step away from his businesses and be a full-time president.</s>HARLOW: Trump is breaking a campaign promise that he repeated time and time again, let's go back in history.</s>TRUMP: Not releasing tax returns, because as you know they're under audit.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Every president since the '70s has released their tax returns.</s>TRUMP: The only ones who care about my tax returns are the reporters.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It depends on the audit.</s>TRUMP: Not a big deal. When they ordered this complete, I would release my returns. I have no problem with it.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think Donald Trump has every intention of releasing his tax returns, once a routine audit is complete.</s>TRUMP: So the answer is I release, hopefully before the election. I release and I would like to release, by the way you learn very little from a tax return.</s>HARLOW: Now you will not see them. Nothing in the IRS rules by the waive that prevents anyone from releasing their tax returns even while they are under audit. My panel is back to debate and joining us Democratic strategist and Clinton supporter Maria Cardona and super delegate and Paris Dennard the member of the National Diversity Coalition for Donald Trump, thank you guys all for being here. One point of fact, it's not true that the American people don't care about the tax returns, a poll was just done by CNN and ORC, 74 percent of people say yes, Trump should release his tax returns, 23 percent say no. Doesn't mean they don't care about their own, of course they only care about their own a little bit more, but they want to see the president, Paris, to you. What do make of Kellyanne Conway arguments that the American people don't care?</s>PARIS DENNARD, NATIONAL DIVERSITY COALITION: Well, I mean, listen, I am a Republican, I support President Trump and I don't think, I personally don't care, I think that I agree with Kellyanne, I'm more concerned about my taxes, my family is concerned with their taxes more so than Donald Trump's personal taxes, because we know he is wealthy, we know he is not going to be bought up or paid for by anybody. He is his own man. That is why (inaudible).</s>HARLOW: How do we know that? Let's talk about what else you learn from a tax return, because every president since Jimmy Carter has released their tax returns. Only Gerald Forbes is the last one not to, you learn for example charitable contributions, you learn about any possible business ties, to say questions about whether he has any ties to Russia. So we're not going to know that otherwise.</s>DENNARD: We also know that the president has no conflict of interest.</s>HARLOW: No we don't. We so don't know that.</s>DENNARD: The constitution said there's no conflict of interest when you're president.</s>HARLOW: I'm not going to debate the constitution for this entire panel, but the (inaudible) law says -- which is a different part of what you're referring to the law that says, the president can make a lot of money while he is the president. He can run businesses, et cetera. There's another part of the (inaudible) law that says that you cannot have any influence or what so ever from foreign governments. And that can be seen as influential if you have business ties to them.</s>DENNARD: Right and he said if he does make any money. That will be donated to charity.</s>HARLOW: that is through his hotel. Maria Cardona?</s>MARIA CARDONA, HILLARY CLINTON SUPPORTER: This is something that we have seen throughout the campaign, he doesn't care about this. And yes, he lied saying that he was going to release his tax returns, but we know that he is the candidate that has said and talked about things that are just the biggest lies in modern history.</s>HARLOW: Maria, you may have believe what he said he would release them, you don't know this lines.</s>CARDONA: Absolutely not. My own opinion, I don't think he ever had the intention to release his tax returns. That is fine. Let's all accept that he is not going to release his tax returns, right? They already told us. The American people do care about it for I think very good reasons, because we don't know what is in there, we don't know what possible conflicts are in there, I think the emolument's clause is something that a lot of experts has said, the moment that he took the oath, he was in violation of the emolument's clause. There are a couple of good government groups that have already filed suit. So we'll see what happens. But this, I think, underscores one of the reasons why, this is a man who is taking office with one of the lowest approval ratings that we have seen in recent history.</s>HARLOW: I will get back to you, Ryan listen, as we know the New York Times, that big front page story a few months ago, he released his 1995 tax returns, do you expect now giving these statements that we'll see more of that?</s>LIZZA: I mean maybe. I think Trump has had to give his tax returns to various entities over the years, especially when he was in the gambling world, so there are copies theoretically out there that aren't just under his control. I don't know, but if anyone wants to leak them, go to the New Yorker.com, we are secure. A server called strong box and you can unanimously give those to me. I hope they don't. I think the American people as you pointed out, do want to see them. I mean we would love charitable contributions, we know about any foreign sources of income. To me one of the questions it raises is through the entire campaign, he promised he would do this once the audit was over. And a lot of people went on our air and on other shows and said don't worry. He is going to do this when the audit is over, trust us. What are all those people going to do now? For his vice president, he is made liars not just out of himself by breaking this promise, but all of those people who defended him and said he would two this. So I think this is going to be an interesting moment now to all those same folks go out and say we didn't mean it? If any of you have every read or well that is a dynamic that is not healthy in a democracy.</s>HARLOW: Kirsten.</s>POWERS: Yes, I think that, that is right and I think it is like giving him a benefit of the doubt and say he didn't lie, let's just say he change his mind. What about keeping your word, what about the fact that you did tell people that you were going to do this, and now the reason he is not doing it, we are being told is because nobody cares, I mean you do need to take seriously that you made a promise to do something and to stop saying that nobody cares when every poll actually shows like 2/3 of the country actually do care. And Kellyanne said something along the line. You know they're complying with all the ethical standards. How do we know that? Like how can we possibly know that?</s>CARDONA: There's an investigation that says there's nothing to indicate that he has done everything that he said he was going to do to separate himself from his business.</s>HARLOW: What do the American people sitting home, it's Sunday night for them, they're sitting down at the dinner table and they're saying what do I do with this information? How does this help me moving forward? What should they take away from?</s>DRUCKER: I think we need to understand that there was one candidate in the race that released 30 years of tax returns and one candidate in the race that released none. And the guy that released none won the election. There are plenty of Republicans...</s>HARLOW: Saying he was going to release them.</s>DRUCKER: Yes, but they didn't care enough, you know the American people care about a lot of things and there are plenty of Republicans that I have talked to that would prefer him to release his took returns and voted for him anyway and would vote for him anyway again. And so I think there is a couple of issues here, there is the issue of whether or not our democracy is healthier and the system is healthier if you have candidates release tax returns so we can understand where their financial ties are and things of that nature, especially with Trump and his worldwide business ties, there are plenty of questions there, but there's also the political element. American voters tend to make judgment based on their choices.</s>HARLOW: You remember your colleague Selena Zeto wrote this line, that I will never forget and of course I can't exactly quote it right now, during the campaign and it said, something to the point of Trump supporters take him seriously not literally, those who oppose him take him literally not seriously. Is there a bit of that here?</s>LIZZA: Maybe, there's no way for any of us to know what single issue the voters decided was okay with Trump and what wasn't. Your argument is greatly complicated by the fact that there are 3 million people more that voted for Hillary Clinton. So if you believe the election...</s>DRUCKER: The system is decided by the states that matter than the Electoral College.</s>LIZZA: You're saying a majority supported one element of one of --</s>DRUCKER: This only matters in a political context of winning the election.</s>LIZZA: I'm just saying if you're going to use the election as decisive as any single piece of candidate's platform, it's not a great argument of one of that candidate actually got more votes.</s>POWERS: This is new argument that I find kind of insidious, frankly.</s>HARLOW: That the people don't care?</s>POWERS: It is just that people voted for him anything he does is ok. I do not remember this from Barack Obama when president that every time he did something, if Democrats just said, he won the election.</s>LIZZA: He said in the campaign he would release the taxes after the audit was over. So if you're saying that this is a referendum on that, the referendum is I support Donald Trump, because he is going to release them after the campaign.</s>DRUCKER: If you are the president of the United States and you won without releasing your tax returns, of course you're not going to release your tax returns. That doesn't mean it is the right thing to do.</s>LIZZA: Why of course?</s>HARLOW: Yes, why of course?</s>DRUCKER: Because any candidate who wins the presidency always assumes that whatever I did must from worked. That is how they all operate.</s>HARLOW: Final thought, because I think the question becomes many people will, you know, be asking why not release them once the audit is over? Is there anything to hide?</s>DENNARD: Poppy, I think you're absolutely right, and I think we need to dial back this conversation and look at what the question was pose to Kellyanne, that was in response to this online petition --</s>HARLOW: Which has 200,000 signatures and she said in response to that petition, the White House response is, we're not going to release it because of this petition.</s>HARLOW: I may have to quote right here. The White House response is he is not going to release his tax returns.</s>DENNARD: But it's in context of that petition. She did not say after the audit is done the president is not going to release his tax returns?</s>HARLOW: Do you think this wasn't a period statement, not releasing them, period. End of story?</s>DENNARD: That is the way I interpreted. We have not heard from the president himself about this situation. But this is in response to their petition.</s>HARLOW: Thank you all very much. We appreciate it, Paris Dennard, Maria Cardona, Kirsten Powers, David Drucker, and Ryan Lizza. Coming up for us, the White House today defending false statements delivered in press secretary Sean Spicer's first official briefing.</s>KELLYANNE CONWAY, PRESS SECRETARY: You're saying it's a falsehood and they're giving Sean Spicer, our press secretary gave alternative facts to that.</s>HARLOW: Alternative facts, alternative facts are the number one things trending on twitter today, we're going the dive into all of it straight ahead with Brian Stelter.