While President Trump has received plenty of flak for his Twitter missives about Morning Joe host Mika Brzezinski, critics have largely missed another problem with his tweets: The president is wrong about the show’s ratings.
On Friday, President Trump tweeted, “Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show.”
Watched low rated @Morning_Joe for first time in long time. FAKE NEWS. He called me to stop a National Enquirer article. I said no! Bad show
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 30, 2017
It’s not the first time the president hhas disparaged the show’s ratings. In the first of two Thursday tweets attacking the hosts, Trump called Morning Joe “poorly rated.”
I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don't watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 29, 2017
Yet the actual ratings data refutes Trump’s allegations. In the second quarter of 2017, Morning Joe marked its ninth consecutive quarter of growth, according to an NBC Universal press release. The show posted an average viewership of 997,000, making it the second-highest rated show in the 6 a.m. To 9 a.m. Slot . Morning Joe also achieved “MSNBC’s highest rating ever” in that time slot among viewers aged 25 to 54, according to the release.
Cable news viewership overall has spiked in the wake of Trump’s election. CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC all saw double-digit ratings increases in the second quarter of 2017, according to Nielsen data cited by Variety.
Trump has also slammed CNN for low ratings, despite the fact that the network has posted a total day rating spike of 25% in Q2 2017, compared to the same quarter in 2016.
Fake News CNN is looking at big management changes now that they got caught falsely pushing their phony Russian stories. Ratings way down!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 27, 2017
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