President Trump on Saturday touted his campaign promise for tax-free tips and thanked Nevada voters for delivering his win as he stopped for a victory lap in the battleground state that flipped red for the first time in decades in November.
“In the coming weeks, I’ll be working with Congress to get a bill on my desk that cuts taxes for workers, families, small businesses, and, very importantly, keeps my promise for a thing called …. No tax on tips,” Trump said to applause at the Circa Resort and Casino, his first visit to Nevada since taking office on Monday.
“So if you’re a restaurant worker, a server, a valet, a bellhop, a bartender, or one of my caddies — I go through caddies like candy, if I play badly, I always blame my caddy — or any other worker who relies on tipped income, your tips will be 100% yours,” he continued.
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Trump debuted his proposal to exempt tips from federal taxes at a rally in Nevada last summer, and he has pointed to its popularity among the state’s service and hospitality workers as a big factor in his victory there. Recent polling has shown the idea has traction nationwide, and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) last week reintroduced a bill to that end.
As he talked up the proposal, Trump quipped to the Las Vegas crowd that “I know you didn’t hear anything about this, and I’m sure it had no influence on the state, the fact that we won this crazy, massive majority, the state that hadn’t been won by a Republican in decades.”
When Nevada flipped red in November, Trump became the first GOP presidential candidate to win the key swing state since President George W. Bush in 2004.
“I want to come to Nevada to pay my respects because this is the only Republican win of the state in decades, and it was a very big landslide,” Trump said, adding that “I think Republicans are going to win a lot now.”
Trump’s stop in Las Vegas came after back-to-back visits in hurricane-hit North Carolina and wildfire-torn Los Angeles, capping off a busy first week back in the Oval Office. From the Nevada stage, Trump laid out some of his accomplishments, including executive action to recognize only two sexes and end diversity, equity and inclusion practices in the federal government.
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He touted his hiring freeze affecting the Internal Revenue Service, saying “they hired, or tried to hire, 88,000 new workers to go after you, and we’re in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them, or maybe we’ll move them to the border.”
“How about just no tax, period?” Trump said to the crowd, after an audience member appeared to shout the suggestion. “You know, if the tariffs work out … a thing like that could happen.”
The president also hinted at possible territorial expansion as he hailed plans to “drill, baby, drill,” — comments that come as he floats U.S. control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.
“The United States has the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth, and we may be a very substantially enlarged country in the not too distant — isn’t it nice to see? You know, for years, for decades, we’re the same size to the square foot, probably got smaller, actually, but we might be an enlarged country pretty soon, and one of the things we’re going to be doing is: drill, baby, drill,” Trump said.
