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For Immediate Release
September, 28 2020, 12:00am EDT
Contact:
Sam Quigley, sam@patrioticmillionaires.org
Patriotic Millionaires on Trump Tax Returns: The American People Should be Pissed Off
"This is evidence of the rot in our tax system, which is designed to allow rich people to avoid paying their fair share."
WASHINGTON
Yesterday, the New York Times released a bombshell report on President Trump's taxes, showing that he paid no federal income taxes for 10 of the last 15 years, and that in 2016 and 2017 he paid only $750 a year. While this level of tax evasion is certainly unusual, it's a symptom of a tax system that offers the rich countless loopholes to legally avoid paying taxes.
In response to this report, Morris Pearl, the Chair of the Patriotic Millionaires and a former managing director of BlackRock, Inc., issued the following statement:
"It seems obvious that Trump has committed some amount of criminal tax evasion, but that's not the biggest issue here. The real problem is a system that provides such absurd loopholes to the ultra-wealthy in the first place, and a deliberately underfunded IRS that lacks the capacity to properly prosecute rich people's criminal tax evasion. Trump's case may be particularly egregious, but he's far from unique.
This is just evidence of the rot in our tax system, which is designed to allow rich people to avoid paying their fair share. This has been the case for decades, but the tax code is even more skewed in favor of the rich and powerful after Trump was able to rewrite the entire tax code to his liking in 2017 with the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
The American people should be angry about President Trump's tax evasion, but that's not all. They should be much more angry about how much of what Trump did is legal.
The American people should be more angry about how many other millionaires and billionaires are able to avoid supporting the country that made them rich in the first place.
Most of all, the American people should be pissed off about the fact that instead of offering them health care, or affordable childcare, or financial support during a pandemic, their government instead prioritizes protecting the wealth of the rich, powerful, and selfish."
For more information, email Sam Quigley at Sam@patrioticmillionaires.org.
The Patriotic Millionaires is a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America. Our work centers on the two things that matter most in a capitalist democracy: power and money. Our goal is to ensure that the country's political economy is structured to meet the needs of regular Americans, rather than just millionaires. We focus on three "first" principles: a highly progressive tax system, a livable minimum wage, and equal political representation for all citizens.
(202) 446-0489LATEST NEWS
'Despicable': James Beard Award Winner From Maine Denounces Trump for 'Hunting' Down Restaurant Workers
The "hard-working people" who wash dishes in the back of kitchens, said Dana Street, who owns a number of award-winning dining spots in the culinary city of Portland, "are the best of our people."
Jun 16, 2026
Winner of the 2026 James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurateur, Dana Street, took the occasion of his acceptance speech on Monday night at a ceremony in Chicago to champion the back-of-house staff in his restaurants, a large number of whom are immigrant workers, for the role they play in the industry while also condemning the dastardly way they've been treated by the Trump administration over the last year or more.
Standing with the general managers of three of his Portland, Maine restaurants—Adam Beckworth of Scales, Matt Stewart of Fore Street, Christina "Chrissy" Dibiase of Street & Co.—as well as the manager of the restaurant group, Lauren Harrington, Street noted that his team was honored to represent the 340 employees across all the restaurant group's establishments, which also includes Standard Baking Company.
"We are here to accept the award for those 340 people," said Street.
"These people are the best of our people." —Dana Street, restaurant owner
"And I'd just like to add that some of the hardest working people are in the back of the kitchen—they're dishwashers," he continued. "They come from around the world, but mostly from South America and Central America. And this administration has spent the last year hunting these people, chasing them down, and detaining them—and forcing them to leave the country."
"These people are the best of our people," Street added. "They're hard working. They traveled here under duress to make a better life for themselves and the people they left behind. And to want to deport people like that—who do so much for this industry—and to bind them up and basically bully them into going home—is despicable."
Street's remarks received loud applause from the crowd, composed of restaurant workers, chefs, bartenders, and owners from around the country.
Earlier this year, following militarized operations in Los Angeles, California and Minneapolis, Minnesota, US President Donald Trump and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem also made communities of Maine—including Portland, the state's largest city and home to a large number of refugees and immigrants—a target for intensified raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
While immigrants and their families where forced to stay home or go into hiding over fear of harassment, arrest, or possible deportation, community members across the state mobilized to protest ICE operations and provide aid and support for those individuals and families negatively impacted.
In his remarks, Street suggested the policies of the Trump administration demand reflection not just in Washington, DC, but among the broader public.
"I hope the American people in general," Street said, "will realize their mistake, because they're responsible as well."
Full disclosure: This reporter, many years ago, washed dishes, bussed tables, tended bar, and waited tables at Street & Co. restaurant in Portland, Maine.
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A new United Nations report finds that well over half of the world's children live in areas facing drought, 1.5 billion face heatwaves, and 370 million are exposed to flooding.
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As global fossil fuel giants report windfall profits from the US-Israeli war on Iran and President Donald Trump pushes to continue oil, gas, and coal extraction despite the clear risks to the planet, the United Nations children's welfare agency on Tuesday provided "the most detailed global picture to date" of how children across the world—in low-, middle-, and high-income countries—are being impacted by the fossil-fueled climate emergency.
According to the Children’s Climate Risk Report 2026 by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), nearly every child in the world is now exposed to at least one climate hazard, including riverine or coastal flooding, dangerous heatwaves, severe storms, or drought—all extreme weather events that scientists say are being made more hazardous by continued greenhouse gas emissions, which are pushing the goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C further out of reach, according to experts.
There were 2.4 billion children on Earth in 2025, and according to the report, 2.3 billion of them are estimated to live in areas with air pollution—identified in the report as is "not primarily driven by Earth’s climate but... highly sensitive to and compounded by it."
Well over half of the world's children, 1.8 billion, are exposed to drought, and 1.5 billion are living in areas facing heatwaves that have grown longer and more severe as fossil fuel extraction has continued despite scientists' and energy experts' warnings.
About 1.2 billion children are exposed to extreme heat where they live, while about 370 million live in areas affected by either riverine flooding or coastal flooding—which have been driven by more severe tropical storms, affecting 662 million children worldwide and frequently disrupting homes, schools, and health services.
Children in sub-Saharan Africa were identified as the most vulnerable to climate hazards, with communities facing extreme heat, drought, and heatwaves.
Children in South Asian countries, such as Bangladesh and Pakistan, were found to have the most children exposed to multiple hazards at the highest intensities, such as flooding and extreme heatwaves.
"The climate crisis does not manifest as a single event. For millions of children, the reality is a complex and dangerous cascade of multiple, overlapping hazards," reads the report's executive summary. "This compounding of threats overwhelms the capacity of unprepared social services and undermines the resilience of families and communities. For instance, intense droughts can devastate crops and worsen food insecurity. Dry vegetation left behind by a drought can fuel wildfires, which in turn exacerbate air pollution and leave the land vulnerable to flash floods later in the year. These floods can destroy infrastructure such as homes, schools and hospitals, displace communities, and spread waterborne diseases."
"These effects can create a vicious cycle: Destroyed homes can lead to displacement, which can result in a lack of shelter, depriving children of protection from additional impacts and making them even more susceptible to future hazards," continues the report. "Disrupted education can have lifelong consequences, making it harder for children to build a stable future and break free from hardship."
The report calls on governments to reduce fossil fuel emissions and "take ambitious action" to secure a just transition toward renewable energy; protect children through inclusive climate adaptation and loss and damage funding; and invest in climate education to ensure that "children’s needs and perspectives are reflected in local, national, regional, and global decision-making on climate policy and climate finance."
UNICEF emphasized that "we know what works: installing solar power to keep children learning during power outages, switching to groundwater aquifers for drinking water as surface water sources dry up, upgrading sanitation systems to recycle water for farming, and building shelters to protect children and their families from tropical storms."
Specific recommendations in the report include:
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- Preparing primary care health facilities by investing in climate-resilient infrastructure and early climate warning systems;
- Prioritizing clean and resilient transport for children by accelerating the transition to safe, low-emissions public and active transport like walking and cycling; and
- Accelerating the adoption of low-emissions, high-efficiency cooling technologies through financial incentives and updated energy performance standards.
Tom Slaymaker, a monitoring specialist for a joint UNICEF and World Health Organization program focused on water supply, sanitation, and hygiene, said the message in the report "is clear."
"Climate change is not only changing the planet, but also children," said Slaymaker. "Without urgent, child-focused climate action, the shocks they face today will only intensify. But with the right investment and political will, we can reduce risks, strengthen systems, and give children the chance to survive and thrive.”
Catherine Russell, executive director of UNICEF, said the agency's analysis "can help governments and decision-makers plan better and invest more effectively in resilient services."
"When we strengthen health and education systems, and improve infrastructure with children in mind," said Russell, "we protect them from today’s climate threats and help secure their future.”
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"The American people need to know if this merger was approved as a political favor," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren.
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The leadership of President Donald Trump's Justice Department shut down an investigation into Paramount's widely criticized bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery and issued a statement supporting the merger before career antitrust attorneys could finish scrutinizing the proposal, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
According to the Journal, which cited unnamed people familiar with the matter, "a team of career lawyers who had spent months scrutinizing the deal were leaning toward recommending a lawsuit challenging it on the grounds that the combination of the two movie studios would be anticompetitive and violate antitrust law." The newspaper reported that the antitrust staffers who investigated the $111 billion merger proposal "didn't participate in writing" the Justice Department statement greenlighting the deal.
“When we said this is what corruption looks like, this is what we meant," the Block the Merger coalition, an alliance of dozens of organizations opposed to the deal, said in a statement late Monday.
DOJ leadership's move to clear the deal was just the latest in a string of merger approvals that have drawn suspicion, given that the Justice Department has been accused of giving corporate lobbyists free rein over antitrust policy. The DOJ's antitrust section is currently headed by Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward, who—according to a fired antitrust official—"perverted justice and acted inconsistent with the rule of law" during a separate merger investigation.
"The American people need to know if this merger was approved as a political favor," Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the Journal's reporting. "This reeks of corruption."
Unreal. Justice Department staff were railroaded again by political interference in the Paramount-Warner Bros merger review.
None of the investigators on the deal had any role in writing the unprecedented clearance statement issued by DOJ last Friday. pic.twitter.com/yYcKUpuos3
— Lee Hepner (@LeeHepner) June 15, 2026
If finalized, Paramount Skydance's proposed acquisition of Warner Bros. would leave CBS, CNN, HBO, and other major media properties under the control of the son of billionaire Trump megadonor Larry Ellison, posing what one coalition called "an existential threat to the free press." David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance, dined with the president in April at an event "honoring the Trump White House."
The proposed merger is still facing antitrust scrutiny in Europe and from state attorneys general in the US.
The Journal reported that "some staffers" in the DOJ's antitrust division believe the Justice Department's statement backing the merger and getting it over a major regulatory hurdle "was designed to make it harder for state attorneys general to challenge the deal in court." In the statement, the DOJ declared that "the transaction is not likely to result in harm to competition or American consumers."
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