President Donald Trump tweeted on Monday that former Vice President Joe Biden would get “no ratings” if he’s elected president, and asked rhetorically if this was what Americans wanted in their president, Yahoo News reported.
In the tweet, Trump retweeted a video, described by Yahoo News writer Dylan Stableford as “heavily edited,” that showed Biden at a campaign event. The video was a compilation of some of the duller moments of the event. The black-and-white clip, which was edited to look like an old-timey movie reel and featured a ragtime soundtrack, showed Biden talking to reporters about whether or not it was raining and asking whether they should come inside. The reporters in the video were seen looking around and staring at their phones, seemingly bored.
Is this what you want for your President??? With no ratings, media will go down along with our great USA! https://t.co/dtJm3J2BPr
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 13, 2020
Stableford suggested that Trump is “obsessed” with ratings, and then provided a link to a compendium of tweets in which the 45th president referenced ratings in one way or another. Many of the tweets criticized his adversaries’ ratings. For example, there were several tweets that suggested ratings for entities such as MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough’s “Morning Joe” show are down.
Other tweets touted his own ratings, such as a March 29 tweet in which he called his daily coronavirus press briefings a “ratings hit.” At the time, he claimed that his daily press briefings were watched by as many people as the season finale of “The Bachelor,” as The Inquisitr reported.
Weeks later, he again cited his ratings when he announced that he was ditching the daily coronavirus press briefings.
What is the purpose of having White House News Conferences when the Lamestream Media asks nothing but hostile questions, & then refuses to report the truth or facts accurately. They get record ratings, & the American people get nothing but Fake News. Not worth the time & effort!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2020
He also cited NASCAR’s ratings earlier this month in reference to a noose found in driver Bubba Wallace’s garage, according to Yahoo News. Trump claimed that the “hoax” as well as the sport’s banning of the Confederate flag had caused “the lowest ratings EVER” for the auto racing series. In fact, NASCAR ratings have been up since returning from a months-long break due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Writing in New York Magazine , Jonathan Chait noted that he agrees with Trump, saying that cable news ratings, with the exception of those of Fox News, will likely sag should Biden get elected.
“Fox News will be fine, inventing new ways to whip its audience into hysteria. But CNN and MSNBC, deprived of Trump’s unprecedented stream of scandal, mismanagement, crisis, leaks, and racism, will suffer,” he wrote.
Chait also conceded that, if Trump is re-elected, cable news ratings will likely remain high because there will be plenty to report due to the federal government’s inability, with Trump at the helm, to handle its basic functions.
