On Tuesday evening, President Trump posted a tweet of a live stream of his State of the Union speech. He didn’t tweet again until Thursday morning, when he told a blatant lie about his speech’s audience.

“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,” Trump tweeted. “@FoxNews beat every other Network, for the first time ever, with 11.7 million people tuning in. Delivered from the heart!”

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! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 1, 2018

But according to widely-shared Nielsen numbers released Wednesday, Trump’s first State of the Union was not the most watched in history.


In fact, as Fox News pointed out after Trump’s tweet, it wasn’t particularly close, with the three presidents who immediately preceded Trump each delivering State of the Union Addresses watched by more than 45.6 people.

#SOTU TV Viewers:

2018: 45.6M

2017: 47.7M*

2016: 31.3M

2015: 31.7M

2014: 33.3M

2013: 33.5M

2012: 37.8M

2011: 42.8M

2010: 48.0M

2009: 52.4M*

2008: 37.5M

2007: 45.5M

2006: 41.7M

2005: 38.4M

2004: 43.4M

2003: 62.1M

1993: 66.9M* (largest TV audience) *Not an official SOTU pic.twitter.com/OZlUHmGQp4 — Fox News Research (@FoxNewsResearch) February 1, 2018

The data released by Nielsen doesn’t include the number of people who streamed the speech online — but that’s also the case for previous years.

Trump’s lie about his SOTU audience is reminiscent of the one his administration pushed about his inauguration crowd size. Despite clear photographic evidence that the crowd at Trump’s inauguration was far smaller than for Obama’s, the Trump administration spent the first days of Trump’s presidency insisting that it “was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration. Period. Both in person and around the globe,” as then-Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s infamously said during his first press briefing.

It turned out that not only was Trump’s in-person inauguration crowd size smaller than Obama’s, but his TV ratings were smaller as well.


Trump lies about big things, like his claim that millions of voters cost him the popular vote (no such thing happened), and small stuff, like the penalty in China for shoplifting (it’s not 10 years in jail). His lie about his SOTU audience comes while his lawyers are trying to prevent the president from sitting down for a sworn interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller — a setting where even small fibs could land him in legal trouble.

Coincidentally, the positive news cycle Trump sought to bask in by not tweeting on Wednesday was ruined by explosive Mueller news. On Wednesday afternoon, CNN broke news, later corroborated by other outlets, that Trump asked Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — the official overseeing Mueller’s investigation in the DOJ — about his political allegiances during a White House meeting. In the evening, the New York Times published an explosive account about how Mueller’s team has honed in on Trump’s role in crafting a misleading statement about his campaign’s Russia connections.