【1989 Archives】

President Trump has a lot989 Archiveshis plate right now, none of it particularly good for him, so he's turned to the tried and true method of distraction: a hip-hop beef.

On Tuesday night, Rachel Maddow released a portion of Trump's 2005 tax returns on her show -- after a lengthy build-up -- and chatted with the reporter who got a hold of the documents, David C. Johnston. The White House tried to undercut Maddow's report by releasing info on the returns before the show even aired.

But by Wednesday morning, Trump was up to his old tricks, trying to downplay Johnston, who has won a Pulitzer Prize and written a book about Trump, talking up a rally he's got planned, and, yes, starting up a Twitter beef with rapper Snoop Dogg.

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For many, it was a weird tweet that came totally out of the blue, but there iscontext. On Monday, Snoop released a video for his rework of BADBADNOTGOOD and Kaytranada's "Lavender," referencing the Philando Castille shooting and featuring an orange-faced presidential clown named "Ronald Klump." At the video's end, Snoop holds a toy gun to his head.

It's certainly a interesting enough item that the Secret Service noted it. But whether it's something that should be occupying the president's time is another question.

Whether Trump is methodical or not about distractions -- really, it seems like he just throws a bowl of spaghetti at the wall and whatever sticks is good -- he's done it plenty of times before and everyone loves a good hip-hop beef, particularly with a household name like Snoop Dogg.

But what was Trump distracting us from this time? Well, everything.

The tax returns theories

A single year of tax returns isn't the huge haul many were hoping for when Maddow first broke the news, but there are things worth noting in here. First, the return showed Trump paid $31 million due to the alternative minimum tax (AMT) so now we know why he promised to cut the AMT during his 2016 campaign: he'd benefit bigly.

Far more sexy, though, is the current conspiracy theory that Trump leaked the returns himself as a means of distraction. That White House statement on the tax returns was released so quickly, it seemed the administration had it ready to go. Plus, many internet sleuths noted that the copy Johnston obtained were stamped with "client copy" which they offered as proof.

Here's the two pages of Trump's 2005 tax return via @maddow. As others have pointed out, page two has the stamp "Client Copy" (higher res) pic.twitter.com/5i0EF6svs2

— Andrew Peng (@TheAPJournalist) March 15, 2017

It's a compelling theory: Trump wanted to leak these seemingly innocuous returns to distract from other dramas but that wound up blowing up in his face.

Whether or not that's true, there are still other dramas he would want distraction from.

The FBI and Russia

While Maddow was teasing the tax return exclusives on Tuesday night, CNN was reporting that FBI director James Comey would officially confirm the FBI's investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign.

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By Wednesday morning, that story was a little cloudier with there being disagreement between Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about whether or not Comey actually promised that.

Still, news surrounding anything to do with Russia and investigations simply drudges back up the recent kerfuffle with Jeff Sessions and the specter of Michael Flynn, among other things, so it's not surprising Trump would want to divert attention.

The TrumpCare car wreck

The roll out for the GOP's replacement of the Affordable Care Act is not going so well and it's gone beyond the usual criticism from the likes of Stephen Colbert and John Oliver. Many in the GOP are rebelling against the plan, the CBO reported that 24 million would lose their insurance under the plan, and Paul Ryan has been reduced to a meme.

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Now, it's true that the plan is much more Ryan's pet than Trump's but the plan is breaking promises Trump made on the campaign trail and experts say that those harmed most by the bill would be those who voted for Trump.

Of course, I don't mean to give Trump too much credit where it's not due. There's been nothing about the chaos surrounding his first months in office to indicate a clear, thought-out plot to finesse distractions from the bigger issues.

But Trump has proven adept and using chaos and adding to it to keep our attention split, like a screaming toddler conducting the world's weirdest shell game.

By going after Snoop -- and you know Snoop is going to respond -- he'll keep us spinning, dizzy and exhausted from a news overload, unsure of what we're even looking at anymore.