President Trump delivered the longest-ever presidential address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday, but the TV ratings fell short of his previous outings.
The speech averaged 36.6 million viewers, according to Nielsen data, an increase of nearly 14% from former President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union address.
The audience for Trump’s first appearance in his second nonconsecutive term fell below the levels of his past speeches. His first address in 2017 was watched by 47.7 million viewers, while his State of the Union addresses scored 45.5 million in 2018, 46.8 million in 2019 and 37.1 million in 2020.
Trump spoke for an hour and 40 minutes, topping former President Clinton’s record-setting stemwinder given at the 2000 State of the Union, which ran for an hour and 28 minutes.
The TV landscape has changed since Trump emerged as a political force 10 years ago, with the number of homes that receive cable declining dramatically.
Many TV news organizations presented Trump’s speech on YouTube or their own livestreaming platforms, but not all of that viewing is included in the Nielsen audience total.
Fox News had the most TV viewers for the speech, with 10.7 million watching coverage led by Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum. ABC finished second with 6.3 million viewers, followed by CBS (4 million), NBC (3.9 million), the Fox broadcast network (2.7 million), MSNBC (1.9 million) and CNN (1.9 million).
Trump’s rowdy speech — a litany of actions taken during his first 43 days in office and a list of his plans for the future — was interrupted by some Democratic legislators in the House chamber. Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) was removed after he stood and shook his cane toward the president in the opening minutes of his speech.
