Donald Trump said he won in 2016 because he had not released his taxes. Nope!

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"I won the 2016 election partly on the basis of the absence of tax return while I was under audit (which I am still), and the voters turned out. This is something that the radical left-wing democrats want to do again – make it an integral part of the 2020 election! "

It's a crazy assertion – more about it in a minute – that also serves as a platonic ideal to the way Trump distorts the facts: not only does he have occasional disregard for the truth, but he also seems to taunt the truth (and those who adhere to it) but pushing ridiculous pretensions to breathtaking extremes.

It is therefore not enough for Trump to assert that his reluctance to issue past tax returns – the first president not to do so after Watergate – was a non-determining factor in the 2016 election. Instead, he must go to the extreme saying that not releasing his taxes was, in fact, a reason why people voted for him.

To be clear: there is no evidence for this statement. No.

As I wrote before, there was no mention of Trump's tax returns (or their absence) in the 2016 survey. This means that it's impossible – or the less impossible to verify – to state that he was helped (or hurt) by his refusal to publish the statements.

Trump won the 2016 election – as the vote shows clearly at the ballot box – for one reason: because he was perceived as a change agent a year in which people wanted a change. Of the 4 out of 10 voters who said that a candidate who could make the "necessary" changes was their most important priority in choosing who to vote for, Trump won 82% of their vote. It was all the election.

Could you say that Trump's refusal to publish his tax returns – apparently because they were the subject of an audit – was part of the "necessary" change that was drawing people to him? Yes, in the sense that you can literally argue any argument of the world when there is no specific data to assert or refute your assertion.

But there is a 0% chance that this argument is what Trump was trying to do with his tweet. As he often does, he just says things. I will prove it – with Trump's own words.

The first clause of the tweet presents a simple argument: he was helped to win by not releasing his tax returns; "I won the 2016 election partially in the absence of tax return," he wrote.

The second clause – "and the voters did not care" – directly weakens the argument of the first clause. Was his inability to disclose his income tax returns a reason voters voted for him (first clause) or a non-factor in the 2016 election (second clause)? Because it can not be both.

(The sidebar: The "voters were laughing at everything" theory is a first advance of Trump's senior advisor, Kellyanne Conway, in the early days of the Trump administration. "People were mocking it Conway said in January 2017 about the refusal to publish Trump's tax return, "They voted for him." Last month, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney spoke about same argument. "Keep in mind that this is an issue that had already been the subject of litigation during the elections," he said, given his income tax returns, they knew it was not the case and they elected it anyway, which, of course, makes the Democrats crazy. ")

The truth is simpler: Trump contradicts himself because his only goal with this tweet was to try to rewrite the story in his favor. Not only did people not care about his tax returns (again, impossible to prove good or bad according to 2016 data), but they actually voted for him because of that!

It is a man for whom a mere exaggeration or distortion of the truth is not enough. He wants to go to the next level with everything – including this. But making a claim even more far-fetched – and not removable – does not make it any more true. Which is really the case in this situation.

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