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Late Tuesday evening, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddox sent out an enticing tweet declaring that she would expose newly authenticated copies of President Donald Trump’s 2005 tax returns. As her show aired and the White House put out their official statement, it became clear that the hype was much to do about nothing. The revelation that Trump made roughly $150 million and paid $38 million in taxes fell so flat that the panel of Anderson Cooper 360 laughed about how good it made Trump look, with one saying it wasn’t “explosive” at all.
“If all we get tonight is that Donald Trump paid $38 million to America's government, that's a good night for Donald Trump, I'm sorry,” joked Van Jones, host of CNN’s The Messy Truth, “I was hoping and praying that it would show, not only that he paid no taxes, he actually charged the government and got money back. I wanted something I could get excited about.” The rest of the panel laughed seemingly in agreement.
Moderator Anderson Cooper found his own humor in Jones’s comment, noting that Jones wanted was explicit ties between Trump and Russia. “What you wanted was that he was paid in rubles! That’s what you were hoping for,” Cooper quipped to the roaring laughter of his six panelists. “Exactly,” Jones exclaimed with a smile.
CNN commentator Ryan Lizza recalled that, during the election, The New York Times published a story regarding Trump’s 1995 tax returns had shown that his finical loss was so massive he could carry it over for up to 18 years. “And if ten years later he's paying 38 million, and Trump, at the debate, essentially said that that story was right,” he deduced, “This shows maybe that actually he paid more tax than he’s previously admitted to.”
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