Surprise, surprise Donald Trump is once again inflating how many people witnessed a big event in his presidency.
Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2018
Nielsen confirms 45.6 million people tuned in (broadcast and cable combined), BUT that wasn’t the highest ever. Not even close. A quick check on Nielsen’s website shows that Former President Barack Obama had 52.3 people watching his first SOTU address back in 2009 and then in 2010 he had 48 million. Go back to 2002 and you’ll find George W. Bush also got higher ratings with almost 52 million people watching his SOTU address.
We certainly remember the kerfuffle after Trump’s inauguration when then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, “This was the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, both in person and around the globe.” At the time Vox wrote that the audience at the inauguration was about a third of former President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration saying, “The Trump administration’s obsession with crowd size is really about a war on facts.” A year later that obsession continues.