Apparently not content just with the amount of criticism and ridicule heaped upon him when he lied about the size of his inaugural crowd, President Trump decided to tweet out another blatant lie that is laughably easy to refute.
Our mendacious commander-in-chief said that with 45.6 million viewers, his State of the Union address had the most viewers in history. Of course, this is far from the truth.
The largest viewership for a State of the Union still belongs to President George W. Bush who pulled in 62.1 million sets of eyes in 2003, during the days leading up to the Iraq War. President Barack Obama got 48 million in 2010. In other words, not only did Trump not receive the most views during his somnambulant and xenophobic speech, it wasn’t even close to the highest viewership of all time.
Trump’s pathetically tweeted:
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
Twitter users were quick to pounce on him, but the president also received a counterattack for his lie from an unexpected corner.
Fox News Research, part of the conservative network that has effectively become propagandistic state television for our conman president, tweeted out a list of the highest State of the Union viewerships without commentary, directly exposing Trump’s lie.
#SOTU TV Viewers:
2018: 45.6M
2017: 47.7M*
2016: 31.3M
2015: 31.7M
2014: 33.3M
2013: 33.5M
2012: 37.8M
2011: 42.8M
2010: 48.0M
2009: 52.4M*
2008: 37.5M
2007: 45.5M
2006: 41.7M
2005: 38.4M
2004: 43.4M
2003: 62.1M
1993: 66.9M* (largest TV audience)*Not an official SOTU pic.twitter.com/OZlUHmGQp4
— Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) February 1, 2018
Take action now to demand Congress stop Trump from firing Special Prosecutor Mueller!
While it’s amusing to pile onto the president and mock his seemingly inept attempt to spin another outrageous, egotistical lie, it can’t be ruled out that this is intended as a distraction, a ploy to seize the news cycle and pull it away from his legitimate scandals, of which there are increasingly many.
Between the backlash over his authoritarian attacks on the FBI, his refusal to enact sanctions on Russia despite Congress voting overwhelmingly for them, and the recent news that his White House Communications Director Hope Hicks could be under the microscope for obstruction of justice, this has not been a good week for Donald.
So yes, laugh at his petty lies and call him out for them, but stay focused on the real problems. We have a president ratcheting up his attacks on cornerstone institutions of our democracy and he must be stopped and expelled from office.
