# How long into Rachel Maddow's monologue did you realize that the Trump Tax story was small? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 15, 2017, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231 "2017-03-15T13:04:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/21 "2017-03-15T21:12:41Z")
Saw the over-hyped Fark link yesterday. Clicked on it. Nope. Not going to cause the slightest ripple. This plays directly in Trump’s hand. Bannon loves this sort of stuff. They can claim that _everything_ is all “Boy who cried wolf.”/“The sky is falling.” The media continues to be played. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/22 "2017-03-15T21:22:06Z")
> [@ftg](#): > > Saw the over-hyped Fark link yesterday. Clicked on it. > > Nope. Not going to cause the slightest ripple. > > This plays directly in Trump’s hand. Bannon loves this sort of stuff. They can claim that _everything_ is all “Boy who cried wolf.”/“The sky is falling.” > > The media continues to be played. I’m not following. Who got played? The media are pressuring donnie to release his tax returns. Eventually it will be the pols too. There are lawsuits wherein these returns will be requested under subpoena. Yesterday was a symptom of it this activity, no matter who released it. That’s like all that happened. I can’t see the egg on anyone but people who are trying to play it up as another brilliant chess move win for the fascist. I don’t think that Maddow is distracted by this. CNN maybe, but even don lemon is catching on; Fox is psychotic. So who got played? ---
**Author:** ![Sage\_Rat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sage_rat/32/399_2.png) [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/23 "2017-03-15T22:23:36Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > For me I always felt it was a small story, and that Trump should have just released them during the campaign like any candidate in the past. What was released, I believe, is a two page summary from Trump’s best performing year. The sought-after tax returns are the full deal, with all his monetary sources, and more recent than 12 years ago. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/24 "2017-03-15T22:31:48Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > This report basically adds evidence to things that were already suspected; that Trump isn’t as rich as he claims… How doe this report do that? ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/25 "2017-03-15T22:49:49Z")
by the first commercial break I had the feeling it would be a big let down. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/26 "2017-03-15T22:57:05Z")
About 3 seconds, as soon as I saw that the return did not include any schedules, where all the juicy stuff resides. In other news, [Oscar Meyer is accepting applications](http://www.oscarmayer.com/wienermobile) for drivers,er, “Hotdoggers” of their Wienermobile. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/27 "2017-03-15T23:27:56Z")
> [@Chicken\_Fingers](#): > > Smoke and mirrors to distract people from the big stories. ^ This She got sucker-punched and it has (as intended?) hurt some of her credibility. I think that some people close to Trump want her credibility hurt. I think that this is because there are big stories yet to break and this will make people take her claims less seriously… when those big stories do break. When masterfully crafted traps like this were sprung in the past, some people would say “Karl Rove”. I’m not sure who they say crafts them now. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/28 "2017-03-15T23:44:55Z")
This doesn’t seem like much of a trap. I’m surprised RM fell for it, though. She’s anything but stupid. What was she thinking? Ratings? Anyone with half a brain would realize almost immediately that: 1. Not much of a news story, other than cover for Trump. 2. Good chance this was deliberately leaked by Trump. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2017, 11:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/29 "2017-03-15T23:49:13Z")
While I DO think she should have reported what she got, there is no way she should’ve spent an entire hour on it. They could have just used the news scroll at the bottom to announce what she had and what it contained. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/30 "2017-03-16T00:11:43Z")
> [@snfaulkner](#): > > While I DO think she should have reported what she got, there is no way she should’ve spent an entire hour on it. They could have just used the news scroll at the bottom to announce what she had and what it contained. The other networks covered it wall to wall. Even Fox covered it and they usually don’t admit to real events that are covered by the others. So it was going to be big news anywhere. Rachel, by being the biggest swinging dick on the trump watch was the venue of choice for Johnston. He stayed for two hours and then went over to CNN for their coverage. So a news crawl would have been stupid. They were in the news and they are a news network. IOW it was a scoop for her and she used the time to tote for further leaks. I can’t see why her credibility is affected. They spent a long time on no news? Boo hoo. The American public has spoken on that and they will watch very little content. Have you checked out the historic groundbreaking CNN lately? I would stay tuned (to MSNBC) for the next few months and see what happens. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/31 "2017-03-16T00:15:17Z")
It’s not a question of whether the network covered it or not. One wonders why RM agreed to be a Trump stooge. I would’ve thought she’d take one look at this and say: Let some other schmuck cover this non-event! ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/32 "2017-03-16T00:16:37Z")
> [@Count\_Blucher](#): > > ^ This > > She got sucker-punched and it has (as intended?) hurt some of her credibility. > I think that some people close to Trump want her credibility hurt. I think that this is because there are big stories yet to break and this will make people take her claims less seriously… when those big stories do break. > > When masterfully crafted traps like this were sprung in the past, some people would say “Karl Rove”. I’m not sure who they say crafts them now. It’s not reality TV or wrestling.There is nothing to call at the moment. The investigation continues. The idea of calling a round for someone is buying into a bubble IMO. So it was a master stroke for don the con? It could also be a vain attempt to distract from things that are not going to be stopped now. IOW how bright do you think they really are, and what kind of chaos are you not seeing? ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/33 "2017-03-16T00:23:16Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > It’s not a question of whether the network covered it or not. One wonders why RM agreed to be a Trump stooge. I would’ve thought she’d take one look at this and say: Let some other schmuck cover this non-event! It was overdone, but I and I’m guessing you are not in the cable news business. The rest of my post answers your questions as to why this happened. I can’t see the stoogery. She is on a story and she was not filing for deadline last night by any stretch. If you have been watching her over the last couple weeks you would see she is trying to outline things that are going to come in drips over a period of time now. Have you noticed in your news aggregator that some things just end up getting publicity for weeks for almost nothing? Phil Collins said McCartney was a dick! Wow. Maddow got a lot of press over this and she certainly has not embarrassed herself like dozens of public personalities have over the last year. She will come out of it looking like an investigative cable news host. ---
**Author:** ![not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/not_what_you_d_expect/32/3246_2.png) [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/34 "2017-03-16T01:00:33Z")
Not long, and I hate to say it because I do like Rachel, but I just can’t watch her show. She always oversells her stories and teases a story for the whole hour. That just irritates me. I think they should maybe give her a half hour show. Then she could get to the point a little sooner, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/35 "2017-03-16T01:07:03Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > Not long, and I hate to say it because I do like Rachel, but I just can’t watch her show. She always oversells her stories and teases a story for the whole hour. That just irritates me. > > I think they should maybe give her a half hour show. Then she could get to the point a little sooner, maybe. Or not at all. But I agree. I like her as a person, or as a guest on other shows, but her own show is pretty unwatchable. I end up yelling at her 10 or less minutes in to just [SHUT UP AND GET TO THE POINT!](https://morbotron.com/meme/S02E10/108157.jpg?b64lines=U0hVVCBVUCBBTkQgR0VUIApUTyBUSEUgUE9JTlQh) ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/36 "2017-03-16T13:32:41Z")
Colbert lampoons Maddow’s delivery: > **[Colbert ‘pulls a Rachel Maddow,’ skewering her brutally slow reveal](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/03/16/colbert-pulls-a-rachel-maddow-skewering-her-brutally-slow-reveal/)** > > "A cliffhanger?!" the “Late Show” host said of Maddow's MSNBC slow roll. “Is this news, or a reality show?" ---
**Author:** ![JohnT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnt/32/15048_2.png) [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 1:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/37 "2017-03-16T13:36:28Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > Oh man, that was painful. I don’t watch Maddow a ton but am inclined to think of her as a competent political journalist pundit. But this Trump Tax return story was Geraldo Rivera’s freakin’ Capone’s Vault stoopid. She stayed on her soapbox way too long and made the lack of payoff frustrating. I realized it was “small” before the show, when she tweeted she had his 1040. For someone like DJT, the 1040 is the executive summary of the far more interesting schedules and exhibits, and wouldn’t be very revealing in and of itself, other than the aggregates. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/38 "2017-03-16T14:09:14Z")
I suspected it was nothing just because Maddow makes a huge deal out of vague things. She’s yelled wolf before. I knew it was nothing when nothing sensational popped out by the time her show started. If it had been really juicy, it’d have leaked prior to that. Maddow’s stupidity in this affair is absolutely stunning. I would never have thought her this dumb. She was played like a fish and completely botched the entire thing. (By “she” I am implicitly including her producers and staff.) She could not have done a better job for Trump if she had tried. Incredibly, people are defending her 20-minute introduction as being necessary for “context.” I would hasten to point out that it doesn’t take 20 minutes to understand the thrust of any Shakespearian play; in some you’re given the jist of it in the first two minutes. (In Romeo And Juliet, literally the first monologue.) If your Ph.D. advisor needed 20 minutes of reading to find out the thesis of your dissertation she’d throw it back in your face. Any movie that takes 20 minutes to get across the general idea of where you’re headed is a shit movie. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/39 "2017-03-16T14:54:22Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > How doe this report do that? Trump has claimed his annual income is usually in excess of five hundred million dollars. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2017, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231/40 "2017-03-16T15:13:16Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Trump has claimed his annual income is usually in excess of five hundred million dollars. Where/when did he claim that? And besides, “usually” can easily exclude one year. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-into-rachel-maddows-monologue-did-you-realize-that-the-trump-tax-story-was-small/782231.md?page=3)