Earlier this evening, Rachel Maddow tweeted that she had in her possession Donald Trump’s 2005 1040 and would be discussing it on The Rachel Maddow Show at 9 p.m. Given that White House adviser Kellyanne Conway had previously said Trump would never release his tax returns, this announcement sent the internet scrambling for a Periscope or their roommate’s parents’ cable log-in. However, as viewers tuned in and slowly realized Maddow wasn’t about to go live and immediately scream some devastating dirt about the president the second her image hit the screen, Twitter coped the only way it knows how: goofs.
Maddow’s episode tease did inspire the White House to release a statement claiming Trump made over $150 million in 2005 and paid $38 million in taxes, numbers that allegedly correspond to the documents Maddow received from her guest, Daily Beast journalist David Cay Johnston. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly the mic drop Trump’s detractors were clamoring for — but, if nothing else, at least we got the nervous anticipation, and these tweets.