Watch Rachel Maddow Address Trump’s ‘Fake News’ Claims About the Tax Return Story

After President Donald Trump defied decades of political convention by declining to release his tax returns during his campaign, Rachel Maddow broke the internet this week when she revealed Trump’s 2005 tax returns during her MSNBC show.

Maddow stopped by The Tonight Show on Wednesday to give Jimmy Fallon the background story that lead to investigative journalist David Cay Johnston presenting the world with a portion of Trump’s 2005 tax returns. “He said, ‘If we can verify it, do you want to put it on TV?’” Maddow said. “And I said, ‘hmm, yes, but we need to do our due diligence, too. We really need to be sure this is the real thing.’”

Maddow told Fallon that at the last minute, the White House confirmed the document. “We got a statement from ’em,” she said. “You know they started calling us ‘fake news blah blah blah’ and then we went to air.”

The president tweeted that the story was “fake news”, which while not unexpected, rubbed Maddow the wrong way. “I’m happy to deal with either one of these assertions,” she said, “that it’s authentic or that it’s fake – but pick one.”

Watch the full clip below.