US president says 45.6 million viewers ‘highest in history’ – but previous incumbents beat it

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump has wrongly claimed that his State of the Union speech was watched by a record number of people.

The US president tweeted:

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) Thank you for all of the nice compliments and reviews on the State of the Union speech. 45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history. @FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!

But while the figure was correct – 45.6 million did tune in to watch the speech – it was untrue to say it was the most watched State of Union address ever.

The president addresses Congress and the nation each year at the State of the Union, where he lays out how the country is doing and what he envisions for the US in the coming year.

According to Nielsen, the 45.6 million figure put Trump’s speech below audiences obtained by former presidents Barack Obama, George W Bush and Bill Clinton.

Nielsen said the figure was also down about two million from Trump’s speech last year – officially known as an address to the joint sessions of Congress in the first year of a presidency. That speech was watched by nearly 47.8 million people, according to Nielsen.

It also fell below similar speeches in Obama’s first two years in office. Obama’s first speech in 2009 attracted 52.4 million viewers and 48 million the following year.

Q&A What is the State of the Union? Show Hide The State of the Union is the president’s yearly address to Congress and the nation. This is when the president gives his or her view (so far only his) on how the country is doing – and usually how well he is doing – while also outlining the legislation he will focus on in the coming year. The practice was established in article two, section three, clause one of the constitution – the clause states that: “[The president] shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient.” The first address was given by George Washington in 1790, in the then provisional capital of New York City. Washington and John Adams, his successor, both gave the speech in person, but the third president, Thomas Jefferson, decided to give a written message instead. Subsequent presidents followed suit until Woodrow Wilson personally addressed Congress in 1913. Since then almost all addresses have been given in person, some serving as key historical signposts. • In 1862, Abraham Lincoln used his State of the Union message to call for the abolition of slavery – something he said was integral to the survival of the country. • In his 1972 State of the Union speech Richard Nixon called for an end to the Watergate investigation. Seven months later he had resigned over the scandal. • George Bush introduced the fateful term “axis of evil” in his 2002 address to Congress, four months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bush used the term to tie together Iraq, Iran and North Korea. Adam Gabbatt

Trump was accurate that Fox News dominated in the cable news stakes, with 11.5 million viewers to CNN’s 3.1 million and MSNBC’s 2.7 million. The rest of the viewers watched on the US’s four main broadcast networks.

Trump and Obama failed to break the record of their predecessors, who attracted the largest audiences.

George W Bush’s 2003 speech made a case for the Iraq war and was watched by 62.1 million. A year earlier about 52 million watched Bush’s post-9/11 union address in 2002, when the president warned of the “axis of evil”. The most viewed was Bill Clinton’s speech to a joint session in 1993, which had 66.9 million viewers.

A row over false claims about figures broke out in the early days of the Trump administration, when his then press secretary, Sean Spicer, said Trump had drawn “the largest audience ever to witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe” to his inauguration. Photographs of the National Mall in Washington DC suggested otherwise.