Trump’s State of the Union address draws 32.6 million viewers, marking smallest audience yet

Nielsen reports that over 32.6 million people tuned in to watch President Trump’s address to the nation on Tuesday evening.

This year’s speech to Congress had the smallest viewership of any recent annual address, and it was also the longest State of the Union address in years.

This State of the Union address marked the president’s first speech to the nation during his second term in office. According to Nielsen ratings, his previous addresses reached 45.5 million viewers in 2018, 46.8 million in 2019, and 37.1 million in 2020.

This year’s speech clocked in at 107 minutes, topping the record set by President Clinton in 2000.

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This CNN veteran oversaw the rebranding of what was once MSNBC. Now, the question is whether she can lead it to thrive as a streaming service.

Look, things weren’t going great for Trump in the polls, so he really leaned into talking about how well the economy was doing – though some of the stats he used weren’t exactly on the level. He also kept hammering home his tough stance on immigration, which, predictably, caused a huge divide – you could feel the tension in the room. It was a classic move, trying to rally support by focusing on those two things, but it definitely didn’t unite anyone.

President Trump acknowledged the U.S. Men’s Olympic hockey team, who won gold on Sunday for the first time since 1980 by defeating Canada. Other attendees at the address included the widow of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and David Ellison, the CEO of Paramount Skydance.

The speech was shown on 15 different TV networks. Fox News had the biggest audience, with 9.1 million people watching. ABC came in second with 5.1 million viewers, followed by NBC (3.6 million), CBS (3.3 million), MSNBC (2.4 million), CNN (2.2 million), and the Fox broadcast network (2.1 million).

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2026-02-27 03:01