There were four tweets in all:
President Trump is a ratings hit. Since reviving the daily White House briefing Mr. Trump and his coronavirus updates have attracted an average audience of 8.5 million on cable news, roughly the viewership of the season finale of ‘The Bachelor.’ Numbers are continuing to ris.
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 alone attracted 6.2 million viewers for the president’s briefing — an astounding number for a 6 p.m. cable broadcast, more akin to the viewership for a popular prime-time sitcom.
The CBS News poll said 13 percent of Republicans trusted the news media for information about the virus.” Michael M. Grynbaum @NYTimes
This would be unbelievable if any other world leader was so openly obsessed with his own popularity. But this is not surprising from Trump, he has long bulldozed over the ability to shock.
911 had huge ratings but that wasn’t because of popularity, it was due to horror. The Global Financial Crisis had huge ratings but that wasn’t due to popularity either.
Your NZ 
duperez
/ 30th March 2020At the impeachment hearings Devin Nunes kept saying there was nothing to see, nothing untoward had happened with quid pro quo or anything else. How did he know? Because 328 million weren’t watching on TV. The importance of something is determined by the numbers.
The paradigm has been shifted, it’s not Reality TV but Reality World. The veracity of anything is determined by how many are watching. There truly is a reality tv president, and that’s what consumers want.
Pete George
/ 30th March 2020TVs Biggest Bloopers were quite popular, but now the US has a Blooper in Chief.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th March 2020A bit of light relief in hard times, PG. That’s the most TV can hope to offer I think. Luckily there are still election campaigns running or they wouldn’t have any advertising left.
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020I’m not surprised it’s popular. They are something to behold, love him or hate him. They’re more or less a daily tragi-comedy, with a small group of regulars & other people with bit parts from time. Watching the blank faces of some of his supporting cast when he says something un presidential or stupid – basically all the time – can be a real hoot.
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020*from time to time
Duker
/ 30th March 2020Thats because ‘on cable’ his Briefings have been carried live simultaneously even MSNBC ( who cut off after a while)
IN US, cable is considered those channels apart from ABC NBC CBS and Fox network . Fox News is a cable operation
If the Bachelorette had no competition and carried on multiple channels it too would have bigger ratings
Zedd
/ 30th March 2020Ever since he started his ‘run’ for the job, all the world media has heard from MrT:
everything about him is.. the Best, Most Amazing, Fantastic, Tremendous, Spectacular etc. etc.
>what a load of self promoting CRAP from this guy, who actually seems to believe it ?
He even now claims to, be the greatest expert on all things ‘Corona virus’ ??
*Im surprised his BIG-head; fits on his own shoulders.. what a JOKE-R
Duker
/ 30th March 2020In NZ terms, 8.5 mill viewers on all Cable News Channels channels simultaneously would be around 140,000 viewers
Shortland St here gets around 300,000 viewers normally , big Shorty events can be 800,000
So Trump is small cheese only boosted by being on all cable ( not network) news shows at same time
Even in US all viewer numbers are up because of Covid
“Meanwhile, the March 23 episode of The Good Doctor—one of the many shows that donated its prop medical supplies to US hospitals—hit a season high 6.8 million live US viewers, its most in over a year. Station 19 hit an all-time high of 7.5 million viewers last week. An episode of Grey’s Anatomy was seen by 7.1 million Americans—the long-running drama’s best total in a year.”
https://qz.com/1824422/coronavirus-has-stopped-the-decline-of-broadcast-tv-ratings/
David
/ 30th March 2020Its a dig at the commentariat who have been demanding the media stop covering it because it makes Trump look better.
Did we get any coverage of media companies stopping covering these things because of Trump.
Getting a bit nauseous watching Ardern talk to us as if we are 3 years old. I dont want to hear kindness, teddy bears, toilet training I want to hear what your polling is saying Jacinda.
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020Some media stopped covering it because he was just doing too much blithering & making shit up. Took too much time to fact check & verify. The bugger’s got a mind like a can of worms in front of an audience – anything that pops into his head comes out. It didn’t matter when he was a reality tv star or was running his own business – nobody could question him there. But it matters when he’s the POTUS.
David
/ 30th March 2020I find him hilarious, I think by this stage if he upsets you and you have to run to the fact checker you need to get out more. Can you imagine what will happen to the media industry if Biden wins, toasted.
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020No he doesn’t upset me.
Griff.
/ 30th March 2020Its a dig at the commentariat who have been demanding the media stop covering it because it makes Trump look better.
Actually it makes Trump look like a bumbling ignorant halfwit who has trouble stringing a coherent sentence together .
Media have stopped covering it because it is a waste of time .
As he talks at about the level of a nine year old we can see why you like it .
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020“United States President Donald Trump is extending the voluntary national shutdown for a month as sickness and death from the coronavirus pandemic rise in the US.
The initial 15-day period of social distancing urged by the federal Government expires tomorrow and Trump had expressed interest in relaxing the national guidelines at least in parts of the country less afflicted by the pandemic. But instead he decided to extend them until April 30, a tacit acknowledgment he’d been too optimistic.
Many states and local governments have stiffer controls in place on mobility and gatherings.
Trump’s impulse to restore normalcy met a sober reality check today from Dr Anthony Fauci, the Government’s top infectious disease expert, who said the US could experience more than 100,000 deaths and millions of infections from the pandemic.
Trump’s decision to extend the guidelines reflected a recognition that the struggle will take place over the longer haul. The federal guidelines recommend against large group gatherings and urge older people and anyone with existing health problems to stay home. People are urged to work at home when possible and avoid restaurants, bars, non-essential travel and shopping trips.
Trump, reframing the crisis, says he’s now seen a study that shows 2.2 million people could’ve died if they did nothing, so “if we can hold that down to 100,000…maybe even less,” it’d show they did a “good job.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 29, 2020
The extension would leave the federal recommendations in place beyond Easter on April 12, by which time Trump had hoped the country and its economy could start to rev up again. Alarmed public-health officials said Easter was sure to be too soon.
The US had more than 139,675 Covid-19 cases reported, with more than 2,400 deaths. Hospitals in the most afflicted areas are straining to handle patients and some are short of critical supplies.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had earlier suggested that Trump shouldn’t be so quick to reverse the social distancing guidelines, saying more testing needs to be in place to determine whether areas currently showing fewer infections are truly at lower risk.
Trump’s “denial” in the crisis was “deadly,” she told CNN. “As the President fiddles, people are dying, and we have to take every precaution,” she said.
She promised a congressional investigation once the pandemic is over to determine whether Trump heeded advice from scientific experts and to answer the question that resonates through US political scandals: “What did he know and when did he know it?”
Trump minimised the gravity of the pandemic for weeks. Asked whether she is saying that attitude cost American lives, Pelosi said: “Yes, I am. I’m saying that.”
It put Pelosi out of lockstep with former Vice-President Joe Biden, the likely Democratic presidential nominee, who said he wouldn’t go so far as to lay the blame for deaths on the President. “I think that’s a little too harsh,” he told NBC.
Biden faulted Trump for holding back on using his full powers under the recently invoked Defence Production Act to spur the manufacture of the full range of needed medical supplies — and for making erratic statements about the pandemic.
“He should stop thinking out loud and start thinking deeply,” Biden said.
– AP”
The Herald
Pelosi gets it wrong; Biden gets it right.
David
/ 30th March 2020Pelosi has played the whole pandemic very badly. The whole of Washington was watching her farcical impeachment hearings while a virus was running wild, her derailing the stimulus package was terrible politics and calling for hearings after Russia and Ukraine wont endear her to anyone.
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020Well, from my perspective, her gaining the role of Speaker after they took the House of Representatives DID endear her to Democrat voters, & to undecided’s with genuine & valid concerns about Trump’s divisive, personality-disordered unsuitability for the Office of POTUS.
But I agree that, along with Schumer, & Schiff, she and those of them made themselves look like farkin idiots proceeding with a doomed-to-fail impeachment trial, especially with all the ritual solemnity that made the whole affair a high bloody farce.
She & Schumer are fools.
lurcher1948
/ 30th March 2020Donald Trump makes America the best in the world,,the GREATEST, the Don rules
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EUPjCGKVAAEdKfY?format=jpg&name=small
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th March 2020It’s ok, Lurch. Trumpy is killing off the Lefty strongholds in NY and California and Michigan.
Pete George
/ 30th March 2020Trump seems to have at least dropped his beautiful Easter egg, now extending the initial 15 day ‘social distancing’ plan through until the end of April.
Meanwhile: Johns Hopkins doctor identifies ‘5 major conditions’ for relaxing social distancing
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/johns-hopkins-doctor-identifies-5-key-factors-for-relaxing-social-distancing
But he doesn’t seem to be in it for ratings so maybe he shouldn’t be taken seriously.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th March 2020I’m surprised they haven’t considered s strategy of spreading the peak around states at different times so that resources can be focused on the peaking states or cities and then moved on to the next.
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020That was what Trump was musing out loud about at a recent briefing a day or two ago.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th March 2020For real stupidity you can always rely on celebraties:
https://nypost.com/2020/03/28/woke-stupidity-is-spreading-as-fast-as-the-coronavirus-pandemic/
Gezza
/ 30th March 2020I know. Watch their President deliver a rally or Covid-19 briefing in full sometime.
What? 3 minor celebs? In that piffling article? There are twits everywhere, Al, not just among the woke or the left.
duperez
/ 30th March 2020How to play the winning game.
March 18
“Trump spent weeks downplaying the coronavirus. He’s now pretending that never happened.”
https://www.vox.com/2020/3/18/21184945/trump-coronavirus-comments-then-versus-now
March 30
“Trump says keeping US Covid-19 deaths to 100,000 would be a ‘very good job.’
https://www.theguardian.com/international
You know that when the deaths are totted up and there are anything less than 100,000 in the US it will be a triumph, a great victory. 53,000 good, 69,000 good 78,000 good.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th March 2020Does the Left need to score 2.2M to claim a great victory, dups? I think that was the number they advanced.
Pete George
/ 30th March 2020More from Trump:
I hope his worst case scenarios are as inaccurate as his Easter aspirations were.
But it’s highly unlikely the US will “remain closed indefinitely”.