Jane Sanders said Tuesday that she would release more of her husband Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-VT) tax returns as soon as his Democratic presidential rival, Hillary Clinton, publicizes transcripts of speeches she’s made to Wall Street firms.
CNN’s Wolf Blitzer questioned Jane Sanders about the delay in making the couple’s most recent returns public.
“You’re the one who prepares the tax returns every year,” Blitzer said. “He’s counting on you to release them. You did release the 2014 tax returns. What about earlier years? How’s that looking?”
“You know, what’s interesting is we released the 2014,” Sanders replied. “Hillary Clinton hasn’t released a transcript yet.”
Though Bernie Sanders has called on Clinton to release her Wall Street speech transcripts many times before in debates and at rallies, his wife’s comments marked the first time his campaign has called for a direct tit-for-tat.
Still, Jane Sanders brushed aside the tax returns as irrelevant to the greater issues at stake in the 2016 campaign.
“Honestly, Wolf, these are not the issues that are of concern to the American people,” Sanders said. “They’re concerned about having no jobs. About bad trade policies. About foreign policies that are not making sense.”
“I implore you as a leading wonderful host of a major show, please talk about the issues that concern the American people instead of delegate math and who can win or who can lose,” she added.
The 2014 tax returns, which the Sanders campaign released earlier this month, showed that the couple earned about $205,000 that year and donated $8,350 to charity.
Hillary and Bill Clinton reported about $28 million in income that same year and donated more than $3 million to charity. Clinton’s tax returns dating back to 2007 are available on her campaign website.
