The president’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, denounced the report as “despicable<br />and reprehensible.” Mr. Trump, in an interview with Fox’s Mr. Carlson on Wednesday, dismissed the journalist who obtained the tax forms, David Cay Johnston, as “not much.”<br />MSNBC’s audience on Tuesday peaked between 9:15 and 9:30 p.m., around the time Ms. Maddow was informing viewers of Mr. Trump’s tax payment.<br />Reveal of Trump Tax Records Brings Rachel Maddow Record Viewership -<br />By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUMMARCH 16, 2017<br />Rachel Maddow’s slow-walk reveal of President Trump’s decade-old tax records on Tuesday night did not earn her much journalistic praise.<br />Viewership figures in the television industry have been delayed this week<br />because of an electrical problem at a Nielsen company facility near Tampa, Fla.<br />A version of this article appears in print on March 17, 2017, on Page B5 of the New<br />York edition with the headline: Tax-Return Tease Gives Maddow Record Ratings.
