This Wednesday, the first GOP debate aired on Fox News, where eight candidates argued why they should represent the Republican party. However, Donald Trump was not present in debating his rivals and instead opted to sit down for an exclusive interview with Tucker Carlson.
Unsurprisingly, the exclusive interview on Elon Musk’s platform X (formerly Twitter) has exploded with popularity and engagement. As of writing this article, the video has almost 250 million views. The interview has been reposted almost 190,000 times and has nearly 730,000 likes.
Needless to say, the engagement around the conversation between the two has been eye-opening, even leading to speculation that it could be the most-watched interview ever. Chief White House Correspondent at Today News Africa in Washington, Simon Ateba, posted to X, “BREAKING: @TuckerCarlson‘s interview with @realDonaldTrump has garnered over 160 million views, making it the most-watched interview of all time. It surpasses the 1993 Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey interview, which previously held the title with an estimated 90 million viewers.”
BREAKING: @TuckerCarlson's interview with @realDonaldTrump has garnered over 160 million views, making it the most-watched interview of all time. It surpasses the 1993 Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey interview, which previously held the title with an estimated 90 million… pic.twitter.com/oG89RmJ75r
— Simon Ateba (@simonateba) August 24, 2023
Both Tucker and Trump have reasons to be disinterested in entertaining Fox News. Tucker Carlson “parted ways” with the network earlier this year, which sent shockwaves through the political and media spheres. Former President Trump has also taken issue with Fox News’ disloyalty to him.
Tucker Carlson opened the interview by asking the obvious question of why Trump opted to refrain from attending the debate. The former president responded, explaining that it wasn’t worth his time to entertain the debate when he is leading in the polls by such a huge margin.
“Well, you know, a lot of people have been asking me that and many people said you shouldn’t do it. But you see, the polls have come out, and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points. And you know, some of them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying do I sit there for an hour or two hours, whatever it’s going to be and get harassed by people that shouldn’t even be running for president,” Trump said.
Trump further slammed Fox News for its inconsistent reporting of him, accusing them of backing Ron DeSantis when it was convenient. He stated that it reminded him of how he was treated by the network back in 2016, where they only truly supported him after it became clear he would defeat Hillary Clinton.
“And a network that isn’t particularly friendly to be, frankly, you know, they, they were back in Ron DeSanctimonious, like crazy, and now they’ve given up on him. I mean, he’s, it’s a lost cause. And it reminded me very much of 2016. You know, in 2016, and went through the same stuff, then had to fight them all the way and then it became very friendly after I won or just about when I was winning, but I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate. I don’t think it’s right to do it. If you’re leading by 50,60, I even have one poll I’m leading by 70 points, and I’m saying why am I doing it? And I’m gonna have eight people 10 people, whoever made the debate I don’t know how many it is, but I’m gonna have all these people screaming at me shouting questions at me. All of which I love answering I love doing but it doesn’t make sense to do them. So I take it a pass.”
Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023
Note: Featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.
"*" indicates required fields