Trump brags about his television ratings as pandemic intensifies
President Trump may be dealing with the novel coronavirus pandemic, but he apparently still has time to boast about one of his favorite topics: television ratings.
Trump went on a bit of a tweetstorm Sunday afternoon, citing a four-day-old report from The New York Times that highlighted the number of viewers tuning into his revived daily White House briefings. The president earlier tweeted that the "lamestream media," as he refers to many news sources, wants him to fail, and suggested he was driving them "crazy" with the high ratings that matched programs like The Bachelor and Monday Night Football.
...On Monday, nearly 12.2 million people watched Mr. Trump’s briefing on CNN, Fox News and MSNBC, according to Nielsen — ‘Monday Night Football’ numbers. Millions more are watching on ABC, CBS, NBC and online streaming sites, and the audience is expanding. On Monday, Fox News...
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020
...The CBS News poll said 13 percent of Republicans trusted the news media for information about the virus.” Michael M. Grynbaum @NYTimes
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 29, 2020
Unsurprisingly, Trump's tweets have already drawn criticism about the direction of his focus during the crisis.
Dr. Fauci told me today that the coronavirus could kill anywhere from 100,000 to 200,000 Americans, and infect millions more. Americans.
The president is tweeting about TV ratings for press conferences. https://t.co/bxGaBsOww9
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 29, 2020
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