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Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress drew a solid audience on Tuesday night.
The address, which lasted roughly an hour and 4o minutes and was broadcast across 15 networks, drew a total of 36.6 million people, according to Nielsen figures. Viewership peaked at 37.9 million viewers between 9:45 p.m. – 10:00 p.m. ET.
This year’s audience marked a more than 13% increase compared to the 32.2 million viewers that watched former president Joe Biden’s State of the Union address in 2024. However, the figure is down from Trump’s 2017, 2019 and 2020 addresses, which brought in 47.74 million, 45.6 million and 46.79 million viewers, respectively, per Nielsen.
Of the total 36.6 million viewers, 2.1 million, or 5.7%, were ages 18 to 34; 7.52 million, or 20.5% were ages 35 to 54; and 25.91 million, or 70.7%, were ages 55 and older.
Networks included in Nielsen’s figure were ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, Merit Street, Telemundo, Univision, PBS, CNN, CNNe, FOX Business, FOX News Channel, MSNBC, NewsMax, NewsNation.
Topics hit by Trump during the address included immigration, tariffs, his crackdown on DEI and blaming Biden for the rise in egg prices. The length of Trump’s 2025 speech beats the previous record held by Bill Clinton’s State of the Union address on January 23, 2000, at 1 hour and 28 minutes.
When it comes to cable ratings, perhaps unsurprisingly, Fox News boasted a ratings boost from President Trump’s speech when compared to President Biden’s 2024 State of the Union, while MSNBC and CNN lost viewers year-over-year.
Fox News averaged 10.7 million viewers during the president’s first speech of his second term, according to Nielsen data on Wednesday — up 84% from last year, when the cable channel averaged 5.8 million viewers during Biden’s final SOTU.
Those 10.7 million viewers equaled Fox News’ viewership for Trump’s first speech to Congress back in 2017.
CNN and MSNBC both pulled in 1.9 million viewers during Trump’s speech. That comes after MSNBC had 4.4 million viewers during Biden’s speech last year — a record State of the Union audience for the channel — and CNN had 2.6 million viewers in 2024.
Here’s how the three channels performed in the 25-54 demo:
— Fox News: 1.9 million
— MSNBC: 237,000
— CNN: 585,000
MSNBC was the one cable channel to see its post-speech audience increase, with the channel adding half a million viewers in the 15 minutes following President Trump’s 100 minute address. The channel also enjoyed its largest primetime audience among both total viewers and the the 25-54 demo since Election Night.
Some of the reactions to the speech from MSNBC’s anchors led to headlines. Rachel Maddow, for example, said it was “disgusting” that President Trump made 13-year-old cancer survivor Devarjaye “DJ” Daniel an honorary Secret Service agent. Fellow MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace also was not a fan of the move, implying she hoped Daniel did not kill himself like some officers who responded to the Jan. 6 Capitol Riot.
“I hope he has a long life as a law enforcement officer, but I hope he never has to defend the United States Capitol against Donald Trump’s supporters and if he does, I hope he isn’t one of the six who loses his life to suicide,” she said.
That comment drew a response from White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Wednesday, who said Wallace “disgustingly” tied Daniel to the Capitol Riot.
