Trump urged to reveal tax returns

WASHINGTON, Tuesday

US billionaire Warren Buffett challenged Donald Trump on Tuesday to release his tax returns, a feat which the Republican presidential candidate has so far resisted.

Mr Trump has said he won’t release the documents because he is under audit, which Mr Buffett — one of the world’s richest men — suggested is a weak excuse.

“Now I’ve got news for him, I’m under audit too,” Mr Buffett said, speaking at a Hillary Clinton rally in Nebraska. “You’re only afraid if you got something to be afraid about.”

“He’s afraid because of you,” Mr Buffett told the attendees.

Mr Buffett suggested he and Mr Trump meet “any place, any time” before election day to publicly go over their tax records together.

The business magnate also sharply criticised Trump for a recent dispute with the parents of a slain Muslim American soldier.

Pakistani immigrant Khizr Khan galvanised the Democratic National Convention with a tribute to his dead son in which he rebuked the Republican nominee for having “sacrificed nothing” for the country. In an interview aired on ABC Sunday, Mr Trump insisted he had, in fact, made “a lot of sacrifices” for the United States.

Mr Buffett declared otherwise: “Donald Trump and I haven’t sacrificed anything,” he said, referencing Mr Trump’s remark.

“How in the world can you stand up to a couple of parents who have lost a son and talk about sacrificing because you were building a bunch of buildings?”

Mr Buffett is one of several extremely wealthy Americans to back Mrs Clinton for president, including billionaire and independent former mayor of New York Michael Bloomberg and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

MADE SACRIFICES

Veterans groups and Republicans have savaged Mr Trump’s war of words with the parents of the slain Muslim American soldier.

In an interview aired on ABC Sunday, Mr Trump insisted he had made “a lot of sacrifices” while suggesting that Khan’s wife, who stood silent on the convention stage as her husband spoke, had not been allowed to talk.

The families of 23 other slain US soldiers berated Mr Trump for remarks they called “repugnant and personally offensive.”

“We feel we must speak out and demand you apologise to the Khans, to all Gold Star families, and to all Americans for your offensive, and frankly anti-American, comments,” they said in an open letter.

Army captain Humayun Khan was killed by a suicide bomber in Iraq in 2004. Veterans of Foreign Wars, the largest US war veterans group, heaped scorn on Trump’s “out of bounds” criticism of a fallen soldier’s mother.

“Election year or not, the VFW will not tolerate anyone berating a Gold Star family member for exercising his or her right of speech or expression,” VFW leader Brian Duffy said.

Trump broke precedent again on Monday, lambasting Clinton’s nomination rival Bernie Sanders for giving in to her nomination, saying the Vermont senator “made a deal with the devil. She’s the devil. He made a deal with the devil. It’s true.”

Mr Obama meanwhile, issued his own thinly veiled attack on Mr Trump, telling a group of disabled veterans he was tired of some people “trash-talking” America’s military and troops.

“No one has given more for our freedom and our security than our Gold Star families,” the president said.