Donald Trump said Tuesday his newly unveiled tax plan is getting "tremendous reviews" from billionaire investor
Carl Icahn and others and denied
critics' claims that the plan could add trillions of dollars to the national debt while benefitting the nation's wealthiest.
"It will actually affect the rich to a much lesser extent," the GOP front-runner told
NBC's "Today" host Matt Lauer. "The people that are middle income, middle class, our middle income people are going to be the biggest beneficiaries. Their taxes are coming down very substantially."
He also insisted that his plan will bring money into the United States, "because we're bringing in at least $2.5 trillion that's stuck outside of this country... the number could be much, much higher."
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Further, Trump promised that his plan will reduce corporate taxes and create jobs, and the nation's "economy is going to expand tremendously, like it hasn't since [Ronald] Reagan but probably even before that. This will be a rocket ship for the economy."
Trump also struck back at Lauer's question about his poll rates, which are dropping while the rankings for Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Sen. Marco Rubio are gaining traction.
"I'm still leading in every poll, and some of the polls are really good," said Trump, pointing out that one poll Lauer cited, which put him in a "statistical dead heat" with Carson, actually shows him one point ahead.
But if the polls change and at some point he has to get out, "then I go back to my business. There's no question about that, but right now I think it's working very, very well."
Trump on Tuesday also reiterated that he supports Russia's intention to fight against Islamic State militants, saying that if Russian President Vladimir Putin wants his nation to fight ISIS, "you should let them as opposed to saying we're jealous and we don't want you to do that."
But he would not say if he believes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is the reason for the country's problems, and was concerned about his potential replacement.
"The people that want to come in and replace Assad, nobody knows who they are and they could end up being worse," he said. "We're constantly going out and siding with people and they turn out to be worse than the people who were there before."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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