Politics

Trump Targets Service Workers With Promise To Make Tips Tax-Free

(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Julianna Frieman Contributor
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Presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made a key promise regarding taxes to service workers at a Sunday rally in Las Vegas.

Trump announced that tips earned by service workers will not be taxed if he is re-elected president of the United States.

“This is the first time I’ve said this, and for those hotel workers and people that get tips, you’re gonna be very happy. Because when I get to office, we are going to not charge taxes on tips, people making tips,” Trump told an large audience, which erupted in cheers.

“We’re not going to do it, and we’re going to do that right away,” he continued. “First thing in office because it’s been a point of contention for years and years and years. And you do a great job of service, you take care of people. And I think it’s gonna be something that really is deserved.”

“More importantly, popular or unpopular, I do some unpopular things too if it’s right for the country. I do what’s right,” Trump said. “But, so those people that have jobs in restaurants, whatever that job may be — a tipping job — we’re not going after for taxes anymore. That will be the end of it.”

At the same event, Trump spoke for more than one hour without a teleprompter, Trump spokesman Steven Cheung claimed on X (formerly Twitter). The Republican candidate told his audience his teleprompter stopped working despite paying “all this money to teleprompter people.” (RELATED: ‘I Call Him Watermelon Head!’: Dr. Phil Struggles To Keep A Straight Face As Trump Rips Into Dem Rep)


“Now I got no teleprompter,” Trump said after his teleprompter reportedly stopped working. “You know, I pay all this money to teleprompter people. And I’d say 20% of the time, they don’t work. They don’t work. The thing’s waving around, they can’t tie it a little bit tighter. I’m trying to look at … So we’re all in this together, everybody. We’re all in this together. Just a mess!”

Hours before Trump took the stage and riffed without a script, President Joe Biden gaffed during commemorative remarks at the Aisne-Marine American Cemetery in honor of American soldiers who fought and died in World War I.

“We had to wait all those months just to get the money for Iraq,” Biden said, in what appeared to be a reference to funding for Ukraine.


Biden is known for sticking to remarks fed via teleprompters, but even then his delivery does not always go as planned. During remarks at the North America’s Building Trade Union National Legislative Conference in April, the Democratic president notably said, “… four more years. Pause,” mistakenly reading his instructions aloud to the audience.