Fox needs to wake up.
The former President, Donald Trump’s campaign, took an assertive stance against Fox News on Friday. They playfully criticized the network for its lackluster debate ratings, all the while highlighting the immense success of Trump’s interview with Tucker Carlson, which garnered over 250 million views on the same night.
Nielsen data revealed that approximately 12.8 million viewers tuned in to the Republican debate hosted by Fox on Wednesday. This marked a significant drop of nearly 50% from August 2015, a time when Trump participated in his initial presidential debate.
In contrast, the Trump campaign proudly announced that the interview between Trump and Carlson attracted 100 million views within the first four hours of its release, eventually accumulating a total of 255 million views.
Trump’s campaign expressed, “Fox News is grappling with a challenging situation after divulging disappointing ratings from their coverage of the GOP debate on Wednesday evening.” They emphasized that the lackluster ratings clearly indicated a lack of interest in the preliminary debate, with the audience preferring to be among the hundreds of millions who tuned in to watch President Trump’s captivating conversation with Tucker Carlson.
This communication to supporters occurred a day following Trump’s detainment at the Fulton County jail in Georgia on allegations of involvement in attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. Trump faced booking on 13 charges and underwent the process of having a mug shot taken.
In an interview with Newsmax late Thursday night, Trump expressed that the experience was “terrible.”
Trump elucidated that he refrained from participating in the Republican debate that week due to various reasons, one of which was his significant lead over other GOP contenders in the polls.
At the time, Friday’s data demonstrated that Trump commanded 52.4% support among GOP candidates, as per the cumulative score provided by FiveThirtyEight. In a distant second position was Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, polling at 14.4%.