(CNSNews.com) - "I would mind paying taxes a lot less if our politicians knew how to spend the money, but they don't," Donald Trump told Bill O'Reilly on Wednesday.
"They waste the money. They don't know what they are doing with the money. Some cases they do, and they have bad motives."
Trump was responding to Democrat Hillary Clinton, who is telling campaign rallies that the very wealthy Trump "probably" doesn't pay any taxes at all.
The issue arose during Monday's presidential debate, when Clinton suggested that Trump isn't releasing his tax returns because he doesn't want voters to know he doesn't pay any taxes.
"That makes me smart," Trump interjected.
Since then, Clinton has seized on his comment as an indication that she was right -- that Trump doesn't pay any federal taxes.
Campaigning in Iowa on Thursday, Clinton said, "It's probably true he (Trump) hasn't paid a penny in federal taxes to actually support our military or our vets or our schools or our roads or our education systems.
"He actually is proud of the fact that he lets everybody else pay taxes. He says that makes him smart. Well, I'll tell you what, if not paying taxes makes him smart, what does that make the rest of us?"
Clinton urged people to look at her 40 years of tax returns. She said she and her husband have paid the highest marginal tax rates, "and we are glad we could, because we have both benefitted from this great country of ours, and we want to pass that on to the next generation and the one after that."
Trump told O'Reilly on Wednesday that the United States has spent $6 trillion in taxpayer dollars just on the Middle East. "We could have rebuilt our country twice," he said.
"And where are we? Go back 15 years. If we did nothing, we would be in much better shape than we are now. It's a mess."