Critics hit Trump for Republican convention ratings, though ratings are higher than 2020
July 17, 2024
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article failed to note that the 2024 Republican National Convention ratings were up slightly from 2020, despite being down markedly from 2016. It also attributed a claim to Biden's campaign that was actually made by Biden supporters.
Notorious critics of former President Donald Trump Lawrence O'Donnell and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC sniped at the Republican National Convention's first day ratings Tuesday, though their claims were misleading if not false.
In the RNC's first day ratings, "Fox News led the pack by far with 6.9 million viewers at 10 p.m. Next was ABC with 2.3 million viewers, NBC with 2.2 million, CBS with 1.8 million, MSNBC with 1.3 million and CNN with 1.1 million," Variety reported.
This was about 1 million viewers more than in 2020, when the first day of the convention saw 17 million viewers.
The first night was the first time that Donald Trump was seen publicly after the assassination attempt. It was also the first appearance of Trump with his newly selected vice-presidential running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH).
Known Biden supporter and MSNBC host Lawrence O'Donnell called the event a “very low-rated convention” for Trump. O'Donnell cited ratings numbers from 2016, which belied the fact that 2020's ratings were lower and thus meant 2024's ratings were slightly higher.
“I think it’s one of the reasons why he went there,” on Monday, O’Donnell continued. “And I think even if he hadn’t been attacked, there’s a possibility he would have gone to try to pump up his ratings. He did everything he could to pump up Monday night’s ratings that are lower than the Monday night ratings of his 2016 convention.”
“So that’s six million ardent Trump supporters is the most they can get,” O’Donnell also said. “Less than 10 percent of ardent Trump voters decided, ‘I’m going to watch this thing last night.'”
Liberal colleague Rachel Maddow mocked, “That’s really not that much of a bump for Fox."
While true that the RNC's first night ratings were down 21% from 2016, according to Nielsen, they were up one million viewers from 2020.
In addition to his critics on MSNBC, an online community of Biden (now Kamala Harris) supporters on X also poked fun at Trump, noting that his recent nation press conference garnered 6 million more viewers than the first night of the 2024 RNC. This claim was accurate.
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