Donald Trump may have launched his 2024 campaign over four months ago, but he hasn’t done one of his rambly, whiny weekday interviews on Fox News since well before that. That’s because the news network, with whom he’s been feuding, treated the former president to a “soft ban,” which only got more pronounced after his disastrous end-of-year antics, such as dining with anti-Semites. That soft ban ended starting Monday night, when Trump made his triumphant return to chat with his good pal, alleged journalist Sean Hannity. But while the interview drew plenty of viewers, he was still out-watched by two other Fox News shows that day.
As per Mediaite, Trump’s return — which featured the usual moaning, as well as some happy thoughts, like him crowing about how his new, weird J6 Choir single technically did well, sort of — drew 3.04 million viewers. Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? He and Hannity did handily beat The Rachel Maddow Show over at MSNBC, which wrangled in “only” 2.39 million.
However, you know who did even better? The show that airs right before Hannity: Tucker Carlson Tonight, hosted by the guy who definitely doesn’t still secretly hate Trump and definitely doesn’t only say things that will rile up his base. Tucker got 3.34 million — which is still nothing on the network’s most popular program, the late afternoon/early evening group chat-a-thon The Five. That one got 3.78 million, or a little over 700,000 more viewers than the show with the presumptive GOP nominee for president in 2024. Who, again, was returning to Fox News for the first time in about six months.
Trump is still crushing it in the polls, gaining more supporters while his once-hoped-for successor, Ron DeSantis, keeps losing them. But what if neither of them is really all that popular? In the meantime, part two of Trump’s sit-down with Hannity aired Tuesday night, so maybe he’ll get a Mulligan.
(Via Mediaite)