"I was saddened to see how bad the ratings were on the Emmys last night - the worst ever," President Donald Trump tweeted late Tuesday. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Trump counterpunches Emmy Awards over 'bad' ratings

President Donald Trump jabbed back at the Emmy Awards' "bad" ratings on Twitter on Tuesday night, after the show featured a string of derisive jokes aimed at the White House.

"I was saddened to see how bad the ratings were on the Emmys last night - the worst ever," President Trump tweeted late Tuesday, his first comments on the program since it aired Sunday night.


About 11.4 million viewers tuned in to see the 69th annual Emmy Awards on Sunday, just barely outpacing the 11.3 million that tuned in for 2016, an all-time low for the ceremony. The program ran against a “Sunday Night Football” matchup between the Green Bay Packers and the Atlanta Falcons, which drew in 18.5 million viewers. Overall, the Packers-Falcons game was the highest-rated show of the week; the Emmys finished fourth.

The awards show, hosted by progressive darling and late-night host Stephen Colbert, saw numerous zingers flung at the president and his administration, most prominently by Colbert himself, who quipped that Trump's presidency might have been avoided had he won an Emmy for his prior work on "Celebrity Apprentice."

"Why didn’t you give him an Emmy?" Colbert asked the star-studded crowd. "I tell you this, if he had won an Emmy, I bet he wouldn’t have run for president. So in a way this is all your fault."

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Sunday's iteration of the awards ceremony was also notable for giving several politically oriented TV programs, like the presidential comedy "Veep" and the dyspotic "Handmaid's Tale," top honors, moves widely seen as emblematic of a tense political climate. Alec Baldwin, meanwhile, notched the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy for his imitations of Trump on "Saturday Night Live" — another program the president has mocked.

Trump has repeatedly trashed the Emmys in the past. In 2014, Trump panned then-host Seth Meyers of NBC, whose performance he deemed "terrible," adding on Twitter: "Host Seth Meyers bombed!"

Host Stephen Colbert quipped Sunday that Donald Trump's presidency might have been avoided had he won an Emmy for his prior work on "Celebrity Apprentice." | Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

The show also saw a return to the spotlight for former Trump press secretary Sean Spicer, who rolled out on a podium and mocked his now-infamous first outing at the press podium where he disputed graphic evidence disproving the administration's claim to have turned out the "largest audience" ever to a presidential inauguration.

“This will be the largest audience to witness an Emmys, period,” said Spicer, standing behind the lectern Melissa McCarthy used during her impersonations of him on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live.” “Both in person and around the world.”

The president also appeared to praise his political base for being smarter that those tuning into Sunday's broadcast.

"Smartest people of them all are the 'DEPLORABLES,'" Trump added on Tuesday.