In just two four after being posted on platform X, former president Donald Trump’s counter-programming debate interview with Tucker Carlson received an astounding 180 million views.
Watch video:
Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023
The first GOP debate was significantly overshadowed by Trump’s interview with Tucker. Five minutes before the start of the 9:00 p.m. EDT Republican primary debate in Milwaukee, Tucker Carlson purposefully made the interview public.
Surprisingly, within the first fifteen minutes of the debate, the video had already received 33 million views. This number rocketed to almost 55 million views in just 25 minutes, and an astounding 70 million views were attained in the first 30 minutes alone.
Additionally, according to Nielsen Media Research data from the second quarter of 2023, Fox News averaged 1.1 million daily views.
The current front-runner for the GOP nomination, Donald Trump, announced earlier this week that he would not be taking part in the debate in a post on social media. He gave the reason for his absence from the event as his “legendary” poll results, which show that he holds a sizable 46-point lead over his fellow Republican contenders.
“The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had, with Energy Independence, Strong Borders & Military, Biggest EVER Tax & Regulation Cuts, No Inflation, Strongest Economy in History, & much more,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. Therefore, I won’t be participating in the debates.
In a conversation with Carlson, Trump questioned the benefit of sitting through what he perceived as harassment from candidates who, in his opinion, shouldn’t even be running for president on a network that he didn’t consider particularly friendly to him for an hour or two, or however long the debate would be.
Asa Hutchinson, the former governor of Arkansas, and Chris Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, were the targets of Trump’s criticism. The president-elect described Christie as a candidate with a low approval rating of 8% in New Jersey who was now running for president primarily on an anti-Trump platform.
Read more: GOP debate fact check: A review of Republican candidates’ mistakes from the debate
