Topline
Former President Donald Trump and his campaign proudly announced the impressive number of views his interview with former Fox host Tucker Carlson received during Wednesday’s GOP debate. However, it’s important to note that the platform formerly known as Twitter counts impressions differently than actual video views.
Former President Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene attend the LIV Golf … [+]
Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
Key Facts
The interview posted on Carlson’s X account has garnered 154.7 million views as of 7:00 a.m. Eastern time on Thursday.
Trump and his campaign have enthusiastically highlighted the view count, with the ex-president noting on Truth Social that the Tucker Carlson interview is anticipated to surpass 100 million views. Additionally, his campaign stated that Trump “dominated” the debate and more people watched his interview than all the other candidates combined.
The high view count does not necessarily mean that people watched the entire 46-minute interview. It represents the number of views the post received, indicating the number of users logged into X who came across the tweet, regardless of their following of Carlson.
X used to make video view counts public, but it appears that this feature was removed in May. Even when it was available, the metric referred to the number of people who watched at least two seconds of a video with at least 50% of the video player in view, not the entire video.
Therefore, it’s likely that a significantly smaller number of users actually watched the full video of Trump and Carlson despite the high view count of the tweet.
The number of direct engagements with the post, such as reposts and likes, is much lower than the view count. As of 7:00 a.m. Thursday, there have been 148,000 reposts and 536,800 likes.
What To Watch For
The ratings for the first GOP presidential primary debate, which Trump did not attend, have not been made public yet. Consequently, it is currently challenging to compare the number of viewers for Carlson’s interview with the debate’s viewership. The number of viewers for the debate is expected to be much smaller than the number of people who viewed Carlson’s post. The first GOP debate of the 2016 election achieved a record-high 24 million viewers, the highest ratings for a presidential primary debate.
Key Background
Carlson revealed in a video on Wednesday that Trump approached him to do an interview instead of participating in the first GOP primary debate. Trump believed he would reach a larger audience on X than on cable news. Trump confirmed on Sunday that he would not participate in the debate, citing poll results that showed him leading by significant margins. He also criticized Fox News, the network that aired the debate, for its biased reporting. In the interview with Carlson, Trump discussed conspiracy theories about Jeffrey Epstein, denounced his critics, and addressed the multiple indictments he is facing. Trump did not directly answer Carlson’s question about whether he believed there were people on the left trying to harm him. He also expressed concerns about the country heading towards open conflict due to the level of passion and animosity he observed.
Further Reading
Trump Counters Debate: Talks Conspiracies, Critics And Indictments In Tucker Carlson Interview After Skipping Republican Event (Forbes)
Tucker Carlson Says Trump Came Up With X Interview Idea As Debate Counterprogramming (Forbes)
Denial of responsibility! VigourTimes is an automatic aggregator of Global media. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, and all materials to their authors. For any complaint, please reach us at – [email protected]. We will take necessary action within 24 hours.
