Over 32.6 million viewers watched President Trump address the nation on Tuesday night, according to Nielsen data.
It’s both the smallest audience Trump has received for the annual speech to a joint session of Congress, and the longest State of the Union address in recent history.
This was the president’s first State of the Union address of his second term. Previously, his addresses scored 45.5 million in 2018, 46.8 million in 2019 and 37.1 million in 2020, the Nielsen data show.
This year’s speech clocked in at 107 minutes, topping the record set by President Clinton in 2000.
Facing low approval ratings, Trump played up positive economic numbers, some of which were misstated, and the administration’s aggressive crackdown on undocumented immigrants, drawing polarized reactions in the chamber.
Trump also recognized the Men’s Olympic hockey team, which won its first gold medal since 1980 on Sunday with its victory against Canada, and a number of other guests attended the address, including the widow of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and Paramount Skydance’s CEO David Ellison.
There were 15 networks that televised the speech. Fox News had the largest audience with 9.1 million viewers. ABC was second with 5.1 million, followed by NBC‘s 3.6 million, CBS’ 3.3 million, MS NOW’s 2.4 million, CNN’s 2.2 million, and the Fox broadcast network’s 2.1 million.
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