ANALYSIS – Hype versus reality. Donald Trump and his supporters, as well as many in the media, have been touting the incredible number of viewers Trump's interview with Tucker Carlson received.
First it was over 100 million. Then it was over 200 million.
These are mind blowing numbers. But sadly, they aren't real. The real numbers are closer to 15 million, which are still pretty good.
After a 30-month hiatus, Donald Trump has returned to X (formerly known as Twitter), with an historic post of his mugshot, taken in an Atlanta, Georgia jail while being booked on more than a dozen politically motivated state felony counts.
In his first post on X since 2021, former President Trump shared his scowling mugshot, with the words “ELECTION INTERFERENCE” and “NEVER SURRENDER, ”alongside an appeal for donations that garnered more than 14 million views in less than an hour.
That's an impressive figure.
Team Trump is also selling ‘Mugshot Merch' (merchandise) online to turn the tables on the entire event.
That's a smart and effective strategy. (RELATED: Tucker, Elon Real Winners Of First GOP Debate Night)
Trump, who had over 88 million followers when he was active on Twitter (now X), was banned by the then lefty social media platform on January 8, 2021, shortly after the Capitol riot, because they said, “… the President's statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence.”
Trump launched his 2024 bid to regain the White House on November 15, 2022.
Four days later, on November 19, now under the new stewardship of billionaire Elon Musk, X reversed its decision, reinstating Trump's account. However, by then, Trump was posting messages via his own Truth Social app (where he currently has 6.4 million followers), having previously vowed never to return to X.
Now, nine months later, as Trump takes a commanding lead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, and with Musk running the former Twitter, Trump seems to have softened his stance on posting on X.
On Wednesday, August 23, 2023, he opted out of a Republican primary debate in Milwaukee, airing on Fox News, instead choosing to conduct ‘counterprogramming' by sitting down for a 46-minute live conversation with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson on his X page.
In Milwaukee, eight GOP candidates, Ron DeSantis, Mike Pence, Vivek Ramaswamy, Nikki Haley, Chris Christie, Tim Scott, Asa Hutchinson and Doug Burgum had a lively and intelligent debate, often sparring aggressively with one another. (RELATED: Trump Trolls Debate For Hours After It Ends – Praises One Candidate)
Then the following day, Trump shared his mugshot post via his own X feed – two events which must be making Elon Musk very happy, after a series of questionable, and often impetuous, decisions that has produced serious turmoil on his expensive platform.
But the always bombastic Trump may be greatly overstating the size of the splash his interview with Tucker really made.
“The Tucker Carlson Interview with me was a BLOCKBUSTER. Could hit 200,000,000 Views, and more!” Trump posted on Truth Social Thursday morning.
Trump later claimed his Tucker Carlson interview has garnered 230 million views on X, calling it: “The Biggest Video on Social Media, EVER, more than double the Super Bowl!”
However, the truth is far different.
And it has to do with how ‘views' and ‘impressions' are counted (they are totally different), and how Musk has muddied the waters by quietly switching ‘impressions' for ‘views' as the video watching counting metric on X.
The number Trump uses indicates how many impressions a tweet receives – an impression being counted when a user goes to a page or when a tweet appears in a user's timeline.
So, a single user can be counted multiple times in the view count.
A video on X is counted as viewed if the media plays for two or more seconds, a metric that Musk quietly removed from all posts in May.
But by using an old version of the Twitter app on Android, which still shows how many times a video has been viewed, news outlet Mashable says that as of Thursday evening the interview has in fact been watched around 15 million times.
That's still a healthy number, but a far cry from 200 million.
Meanwhile, in contrast, the GOP debate on Wednesday night drew a solid audience of 12.8 million viewers, according to Nielsen, which is far more accurate than online views, despite the Republican front-runner in the race being absent.
This was also a far cry from the record 24 million viewers who watched Fox News for the opening Republican debate in the 2016 election, which featured Trump on a debate stage for the first time.
Still Wednesday's GOP debate's viewership was significantly higher than anything else on television on Wednesday night and outperformed the broadcast network totals combined.
But the 12.8 million viewers of the GOP debate came shy of the real number of viewers for Trump's interview with Tucker – likely around 15 million. So, Trump still came out ahead.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.
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No matter the count the GOP debate was like kindergarten children spatting insults with little substance. None are qualified for the presidency. Tuckers talk w/ Trump was very good – lots of information and Trump has an amazing memory for facts. I loved that he noted we sold the Panama Canal for $1 now China controls it and it’s a mess down there piling up and costs will increase again for goods that can’t get delivered.
GO TRUMP
Barf.
You globalist puppet, god worshiping, demonrat male voters need to take it easy on your demonrat husbands dick so you don’t throw up like your altar boy raping demonrat priests .
Belch.
There’s a WHOLE LOTTA’ folks in other countries that might have tuned into the Tucker/Trump interview. Doesn’t just have to be the American audience, ya’ know.
Those foreign viewers are taken into consideration…Tucker’s 1st intro on X got 23Million actual viewers…that number is valid because on his subsequent appearances on a subject were in the 9-15 MILLION range which is about what his numbers were for his FNC Program. It is in the margin of accuracy. I actually watch his episodes days after they are first aired which I suppose many do…what concerns me is the fact that the management of FNC and Rupert himself were doing a job bad-mouthing Tucker as this foul-mouthed attitude toward reporters who did not “measure up” to his standards, and he was rude and aloof to many of the FNC employees, which I find questionable, but he has a way of making a point in a few words…”Gates makes lousy software” etc… But I have seen MANY photographs of he and TRUMP having animated conversations, one pic in particular had Trump back to camera but making point with his finger on a table and Tucker going into hysterical laughter…which shows he had friends in high places, and would defend the friendship because they obviously have much in common. I will let the political angle for [you] to figure out. He has a fine family, and was co-founder of The Daily Caller, and likes guns and was known to stand his ground in discussions, today mostly political.
Trump has been correct on every thing he states. So why wouldn’t he be correct this time… I do believe Trump! We’re the money? On Trump – Not the fake and phony media and the non-trumpers…
Thank you Mr. Crespo. I need to clean out my email and you have given me reason to make American Liberty one of them. You are evidently a never Trumper or a liberal that has to degrade the TRUTH! I know that the interview was shared on many different platforms and streamed on others. I follow several non-political groups out of the UK and Australia that have very large viewerships and the Trump interview was the talk of the night. You will never know the true number of views but I can tell you that your number is total BS. It’s ashame that you showed your true colors, but it’s good to know that American Liberty is another MSM vent news that can’t be trusted. Have a good day.
Way to go, Mr. Trump, Carlson and Crespo!
Go to Tucker’s interview on X and it says 260.8 million views for the Trump interview, so bad reporting there Crespo!