Maddow saw a flood of viewers to her program, following teaser tweets about obtaining President Trump’s tax returns. Maddow eventually revealed two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax return. The forms showed that Trump earned $150 million that year and paid $38 million in taxes. Maddow’s source, financial journalist David Cay Johnston, claimed to have received the documents in his mailbox.
Despite the tax return not having any real significance, Mr. Trump still went out of his way denounce the findings as “fake news.”
Does anybody really believe that a reporter, who nobody ever heard of, "went to his mailbox" and found my tax returns? @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 15, 2017