The response by Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer had slightly larger preliminary numbers than the president's address.

President Donald Trump's televised Oval Office address on Tuesday, and the Democratic response to it, drew a sizable audience. Just over 40 million people watched the speech, along with a rebuttal from Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, from 9-9:30 p.m. ET on the Big Four broadcast networks and the three biggest cable news channels. CBS had the largest share of that audience with 8.09 million viewers — thanks in part to lead-in NCIS averaging better than 12 million viewers — just ahead of the 8.04 million for Fox News. NBC drew 7.4 million viewers, ABC 5.8 million, MSNBC 4.24 million, CNN 3.57 million and the Fox broadcast network 2.94 million. Univision's Spanish-language coverage added another 1.7 million viewers to bring the total to 41.7 million.

NBC was the leader in the key news demographic of adults 25-54 with 2.75 million viewers in that age range. Fox News was second with 1.87 million in the demo, followed by ABC, 1.79 million; CBS, 1.71 million; CNN, 1.39 million; Fox broadcast, 1.3 million; and MSNBC, 811,000. ABC and Fox wrapped up their coverage after 20 minutes and NBC after 25 minutes. CBS aired a full half-hour. On the cable news channels, only MSNBC broke out the presidential address as special coverage; CNN and Fox News folded it into their regular 9 p.m. shows, Cuomo Prime Time and Hannity, respectively. In preliminary numbers, the quarter hour (9-9:15 p.m. ET) containing the president's speech drew a combined 28.1 household rating in metered markets on ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, CNN, Fox News and NBC. The following 15 minutes, including analysis and the Pelosi-Schumer rebuttal, averaged a 29.3 across those same networks, a bump of about 4 percent.