Donald Trump’s weekly presidential addresses have become YouTube hits. Unlike the addresses of past presidents — which attracted little attention — Trump’s videos have “become surprise online blockbusters — with record numbers of Internet viewers,” the Boston Globe’s Annie Linskey reports.

From the Boston Globe

“He loves doing them,” said Cliff Sims, a West Wing staffer who oversees the address and meets the president each week, often first thing in the morning, with a leather-bound folder containing the script. “The most powerful weapon we have in our communications arsenal is President Trump speaking directly to the American people.”

The average audience for Trump’s first 15 weekly addresses was 1.7 million views. That’s more than three times as big as the average viewership Obama received in the same time period last year, according to a Globe analysis of publicly available data.

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Each week the Democrats faithfully offer a rebuttal of sorts with their own video-taped address. (Under Obama the Republicans did this, too.) The job of delivering an opposition message rotates between the Democrats in House of Representatives and the Senate.

These are not as popular.

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