Trump ends Twitter silence with blatant lie, gets corrected by Fox News

Republican Senator Ted Cruz of Texas described the speech as “very strong” in an interview with Fox News, while lashing out at the Democrats for their stone-faced reactions.

In fact, as Fox News pointed out after Trump’s tweet, it wasn’t particularly close, with the three presidents who immediately preceded Trump each delivering State of the Union Addresses watched by more than 45.6 people.

Obama, for example, averaged 31 million viewers for his final State of the Union in 2016. The viewership generally lands somewhere around where the Oscars are, a good bit above the Grammys.

The president did not make clear the source of his statistic, although the 45.6 million figure matched the one put out by Nielsen, which monitors television data.

Bush pulled in 62.1 million in 2003.

While President Obama did enact tougher regulations on power plant emissions like carbon and mercury, it’s largely competition from cheaper natural-gas fired plants that is responsible for coal’s decline today, the LA Times noted. “There has never been a better time to start living the American dream”. Clinton and Bush saw some exceptions; Bush’s speech shortly before the Iraq War began drew big ratings. “We need an infrastructure plan to create millions of jobs, not corporate wealth” and co-creator of The Daily Show Lizz Winstead tweeting, “So this entire speech was putting human suffering on display to deflect from the human suffering Trump is causing”. Here, they’re all overlaid.

Quick note: The speech a president gives just after taking office looks like a State of the Union but is actually a joint address to Congress.

After President Trump’s State of the Union address, commentators seized on his phrase “new American moment” as a headline and discussion point.

And that came despite smaller populations.

Sixteen of the 25 preceding speeches had more of the country watching.

That’s off five percent from the comparable speech a year ago.

Wearing all-white – the colour recently associated with the #MeToo movement, calling out perpetrators of sexual harassment and assault – the 47-year-old remained seated and appeared to applaud lazily.

Although the cuts would be much sharper for people without a high school diploma, the number of college-educated immigrants would also drop.