Trump says he's open to tax hike for richest Americans in pursuit of Democrats

WASHINGTON _ Eager to garner Democratic support for a still-emerging tax overhaul package, President Donald Trump on Wednesday expressed a willingness to raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans.

During a meeting with lawmakers from both parties, Trump pledged that he wants lawmakers to craft a bill focused on slashing middle-class tax rates and doing things to create jobs _ code for a dramatic corporate tax rate cut.

"The rich will not be gaining at all with this plan. We are looking for the middle class and we are looking for jobs _ jobs being the economy," Trump told reporters as the White House meeting began. "So we're looking at (the) middle class and we're looking at jobs.

"I think the wealthy will be pretty much where they are, pretty much where they are," Trump told reporters of tax rates on the wealthiest Americans. "If they have to go higher, they'll go higher."

Leading Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, have flatly stated their conference will not support any tax measure that cuts rates for the highest-earners.

On Aug. 30, hours before Trump kicked off his public push for a tax bill, Schumer told reporters what the president had called for and publicly spelled out about a tax plan amounted to "really a boon for the very wealthy."

"The president has two paths he can take," Schumer said then. "We hope for the sake of the country he'll choose to work with us and put the middle class, rather than wealthy special interests, first."

Trump's critics, including many congressional Democrats, have accused the president of wanting to include tax rate reductions that would benefit his own personal financial situation.

On Tuesday, Trump's top Capitol Hill liaison, Marc Short, told reporters White House officials and GOP congressional leaders have to decide "sometime in October" whether there is ample Democratic support _ especially in the Senate _ to pass a bipartisan measure.

If there is not, they will need time to tee up a budget resolution with rules for a 51-vote threshold in the Senate that could pass with just GOP votes _ a strategy that failed on the recent Republican health bill.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday insisted Trump has been meeting with Democratic lawmakers trying to get their insights. But he has yet to huddle with the party's real tax experts, including the top Democrats on the House Ways and Means and other tax-writing committees.