Hours After White House Confirms Tax Return Authenticity Trump Calls Story ‘FAKE NEWS!’

White House Also Preemptively Released Trump Tax Return

Rachel Maddow reported that before going live with Donald Trump’s 2005 1040, MSNBC contacted the White House to confirm that the document was, in fact, Trump’s tax return. Not only did the White House confirm the document’s authenticity Tuesday, it released a statement calling Maddow “desperate for ratings” and falsely claiming the publication of the return was “illegal.”

In what appeared to be an attempt to get ahead of the story, minutes before Maddow went live, the White House released the 2005 tax return and announced the top line numbers.

But Wednesday morning, Donald Trump took to Twitter to announce the story was “FAKE NEWS!” and to trash the reporter who says Trump’s return was sent to him by an unknown source and landed in his mailbox.

David Cay Johnston, the Pulitzer prize-wining investigative journalist and author who received the tax return, is hardly someone “nobody ever heard of.” He wrote the book on Donald Trump – literally, it’s called The Making of Donald Trump and it’s a best-seller on Amazon. You can be certain the President has heard of him.

But Trump’s tweet Wednesday morning lends even more validity to the growing belief among many that the person who leaked Donald Trump’s tax return is Donald Trump.

The return is, at least on its surface, relatively positive for Trump. It shows he paid taxes, upending the New York Times story that a major write off in 1999 could have allowed him to not pay taxes for the next 18 years. 

But more importantly – and this is key – it changes the national conversation, which Trump desperately needs to do.

On Tuesday Gallup revealed Trump’s presidential approval rating hit a new low. TrumpCare is a disaster and breaks every promise candidate and President Trump has made about health care reform. His filling of administration posts is the slowest in recent history. His Muslim ban is again being challenged in the courts. His tp advisors are being mocked and vilified – deservedly so. Overwhelmed, he plays golf every weekend, most weekends traveling to Mar-a-Lago. He has accomplished almost nothing, certainly compared to President Barack Obama at this point in his administration.

Here’s what some are saying on social media: