Former President Donald Trump believes his interview with conservative commentator Tucker Carlson was very widely viewed.
In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, he wrote, “The Tucker Carlson Interview with me was a BLOCKBUSTER.”
“Could hit 200,000,000 Views, and more! Thank you! I hope it was enjoyed by everyone,” he added.
Trump chose to skip the first Republican presidential debate and instead sit down for a pre-taped interview with Carlson. The interview was released on X, formerly known as Twitter, five minutes before the debate started.
And according to X, it has received a truly whopping number of views. As of Thursday morning, Carlson’s post where he shared the interview allegedly has received more than 180 million views.
Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023
But the chance that 180 million people actually watched it seems rather small. Let’s just put this into perspective — that would mean more than half of the population of the United States of America watched the interview.
Elon Musk, who owns X, said in July there are 531 million active users on the platform. So that would mean about 34% of Twitter users around the world stopped what they were doing and watched this interview.
And it is worth noting that in 2022, Musk said there were 259 million active users, which would represent a massive spike in usage if the latest user number is correct.
Another comparison is this year’s Super Bowl received 115 million views — making it the most-watched Super Bowl ever.
More than likely, the view count means that many people merely saw — but not necessarily watched — Carlson’s post come across their feed.
This is not to say there were not millions who watched it. But the idea half the country logged onto X to watch a former president on a summer night while the first Republican primary debate was happening seems implausible.
The scant coverage of what Trump actually said and/or the number of people talking about it on X today, would also seem to imply the actual number of people who watched is not 180 million.
