Early this morning during Donald Trump’s tweeting blitz, the president claimed he got “very good reviews” on his town hall last night that was largely panned after he failed to denounce QAnon. Once again, he pretty much refused to say that he would accept the election results. He also called moderator Savannah Guthrie “so cute” and refused to say when he last tested negative for COVID-19. Democratic nominee Joe Biden’s town hall was very different. Even after the cameras stopped rolling, the former vice president continued to take questions from attendees. It was a startling contrast.
And with Trump, ratings are everything. The former reality show star talks about ratings a lot, so OK, let’s look at that. According to Variety, Trump appears to be trailing Biden’s 90-minute town hall with ABC in the ratings — at least according to early numbers.
This is reminiscent of the popular vote in 2016:
Biden drew 12.7 million total viewers on the Disney-owned network, while Trump drew 10.4 million in the same 9-10 p.m. time slot on NBC. Across the entire runtime, the Biden town hall averaged 12.3 million viewers. In terms of the fast national 18-49 demographic, Biden is comfortably on top with a 2.6 rating to Trump’s 1.7.
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Now, some people watch debates online, and those numbers don’t look good for Trump either, according to Newsweek. The news outlet reports that at the end of Trump’s town hall, the NBC News YouTube channel showed 153,660 viewers were watching. ABC News’s YouTube channel showed 507,445 viewers at the end of Joe Biden’s town hall.
We’re sure Trump will take this narcissistic injury well. The president has boasted that he has more followers on Facebook than anyone else, even though that isn’t remotely true. Being watched the most is important to this president — sort of like with a child. But, ratings don’t make Fox News a legitimate news outlet, and followers and ratings don’t make Trump popular.
Sometimes we watch him simply because it’s unusual to watch an individual become mentally unglued over the smallest things. Like, when he hears about the town hall ratings, he’ll probably deny reality to claim that his performance garnered more viewers. Watching Trump is like observing your crazy, drunken neighbor waving his dick around on the corner. You don’t want to see it, but you can’t look away.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
