Former cable television host Tucker’s Carlson’s video message announcing his decision to launch a new, independent version of his show on Twitter was seen by more people than President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
An estimated 27.3 million people watched Biden’s State of the union address in February 2023, a figure that NBC noted was “down nearly 28% from the 38.2 million people who saw Biden’s address in 2022.”
By contrast, Carlson’s post on Twitter announcing his new digital show was viewed some 88.3 million times.
The total amount of times people clicked through to view the clip in Twitter’s fullscreen video player totaled over 19 million as of press time (though it should be noted videos on Twitter play automatically regardless of whether users click through the play button, meaning the 88.3 million figure is a more accurate representation of view count).
We’re back. pic.twitter.com/sG5t9gr60O
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) May 9, 2023
Carlson’s first Twitter post following his firing from Fox was viewed over 82 million times, with the video acquiring over 24 million views through the Twitter video player.
Good evening pic.twitter.com/SPrsYKWKCE
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) April 27, 2023
In the three minute video posted on Tuesday, Carlson made his strongest remarks yet about leaving Fox News, saying that all cable news “is a lie” and viewers “are being manipulated” before noting that “you will be fired” for reaching the limits of what networks consider acceptable free speech.
Noting his disgust with the cable news industry, and American media as a whole, Carlson then revealed that he will take his show to Twitter.
“You often here people say the news is full of lies. but most of the time that’s not exactly right, much of what you see on television or read in the New York Times is in fact true in a literal sense. It can pass one of the media’s own fact checks, lawyers would be willing to sign off on it, in fact they may have. But that doesn’t make it true, it’s not true,” said Carlson. “At the most basic level the news you consume is a lie, a lie of the stealthiest and most insidious kind. Facts have been withheld on purpose along with proportion and perspective. You are being manipulated.”
“Starting soon we’ll be bringing a new version of the show we’ve been doing for the last 6.5 years to Twitter.” He added, “We’ll be doing some other things too which we’ll tell you about. But for now we’re just grateful to be here, free speech is the main right that you have. Without it you have no other. See you soon.”
