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Rachel Maddow Turned a Scoop on Donald Trump’s Taxes Into a Cynical, Self-Defeating Spectacle
Slate ^ | 3/15/2017 | Willa Paskin

Posted on 03/15/2017 6:36:42 AM PDT by simpson96

At 7:36 pm Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow tweeted “BREAKING: We've got Trump tax returns. Tonight, 9pm ET. MSNBC. (Seriously),” sending the internet into a frenzy of theorizing. Did Maddow have Donald Trump’s tax returns or just one of the Trumps’ tax returns? Could this be it, the tax return that would bring down the Donald? If this was it, why wasn't MSNBC cutting into its programming, instead of running a countdown clock to Maddow’s show? By 8:24, Maddow was tweeting that the tax return in question was Donald Trump’s 1040 from 2005. By 8:30, still half an hour before Maddow started airing, the White House had responded to the MSNBC report, saying that Trump had paid $38 million on income of $150 million that year. An hour later, about 20 minutes after The Rachel Maddow Show started, Maddow would confirm these numbers, turning her big scoop about Donald Trump’s long-missing tax returns into a cautionary tale about over-hype. Rachel Maddow, you played yourself—and us too.

“It’s been a little bit of a hullabaloo around here this evening, I apologize for being flustered,” Maddow said at the top of the hour, before confirming that her show had copies of Donald Trump’s federal tax returns, obtained by the reporter David Cay Johnston, to share with her audience. “In just a second we’re going to show you exactly what it is we’ve got,” she said, before launching, instead, into a 20-minute monologue. Maddow seemed uncharacteristically nervous as she wended her way though what could kindly be described as context and which I am unkindly describing as word salad, a long meander that was difficult to follow even without the distracting promise of a revelatory tax return at its end.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: maddowfelony; trumptaxes
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To: simpson96

Gingrich is saying the release of someone else’s tax returns is a felony. Whoever did it should be locked up.


41 posted on 03/15/2017 8:01:30 AM PDT by samtheman (ObamaGate = Watergate Squared)
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To: McGruff

Good one - maybe Geraldo worked with Rachel on this one....


42 posted on 03/15/2017 8:29:32 AM PDT by trebb (Where in the the hell has my country gone?)
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To: Mozilla

43 posted on 03/15/2017 8:35:10 AM PDT by Baynative ( Someone's going to have to pay for these carbon emissions, so it might as well be you.)
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To: simpson96

watching the left come unhinged was in and of itself worth voting for Trump.


44 posted on 03/15/2017 8:36:06 AM PDT by JenB987 (#NeverHillary)
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To: simpson96
Slate said Mad Cow lied, never had a scoop.

Mad Cow really screwed up this time, she will get a raise of course.

45 posted on 03/15/2017 8:53:24 AM PDT by TYVets
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To: pepsionice

Pretend news from a pretend ‘journalist’


46 posted on 03/15/2017 9:26:08 AM PDT by SMARTY ("Nearly all men can stand adversity...to test a man's character, give him power." A. Lincoln)
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To: mulligan
Still, from her point of view what she did was reasonable. After all, Trump is evil, Hitler,capitalist racist, sexist, misogynist, red-neck, and shampoos with Cheetos.

Something had to be there. Right?

47 posted on 03/15/2017 10:15:53 AM PDT by chesley (The right to protest is not the right to disrupt.)
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To: Mozilla
Ms. Maddow being both a Democrat and a lesbian will in all likely hood, walk. If Ms. Maddow were both a Republican and a lesbian, she would be hounded by the media and prosecuted.
48 posted on 03/15/2017 10:24:15 AM PDT by yoe
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To: simpson96

Where did she get the tax returns?
I would think her and Microsoft and NBC can be sued and indicted for stealing then releasing private information.


49 posted on 03/15/2017 10:59:58 AM PDT by minnesota_bound
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To: dowcaet

,,,, all I can think is ,,,, Thanks Miz Maddow for making Trump look like a real champion of the cause while you look like a doomed dear in the headlights of gotcha !!!


50 posted on 03/15/2017 1:54:50 PM PDT by Lionheartusa1 ()-: ISIS is Islam without the lipstick :-()
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To: simpson96
Maddow promised to pull a sordid revelation out of a hat and instead plucked out … Trump’s credibility?

I checked twice - yes, this is Slate. How bad do you have to screw up before even they have to admit it?

51 posted on 03/15/2017 2:07:34 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: TYVets

Seems to me that they were so eager to embarrass the President they didn’t bother to review the material they had. It sounds like they didn’t even read it before going live. They were reckless. You would think SOMEBODY would read it beforehand.


52 posted on 03/15/2017 2:21:19 PM PDT by utahb52
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To: utahb52

Maybe it was in cursive


53 posted on 03/15/2017 2:46:19 PM PDT by TYVets
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