The first GOP primary debate of the 2024 election was strictly allowed to air on Fox News and Fox Business platforms, angering independent journalists and smaller news outlets, while Tucker Carlson’s simultaneous interview with former president Donald Trump on X (formerly Twitter) stole tens of millions of views.
The Fox-hosted debate on Wednesday night drew only 12.8 million viewers, according to a Fox News spokesperson who measured the number by combining the network broadcast and the views across its streaming platforms. Data provided by Nielsen showed roughly 11 million. By contrast, in 2015 Fox broke a personal record for receiving 24 million views on the first Republican primary debate of the 2016 election. It would seem that without Trump in the picture, Fox could only draw half the amount of viewers.
By contrast, Tucker’s interview with President Trump received 74 million views within the first hour of its premiere, which jumped up to 150 million by the next morning. Critics point out that X apparently includes people who only watched a few seconds of the video as views.
Tucker’s interview was unprecedented in other ways, such as the very fact that he chose to air the interview on the social media platform X. Tucker has been hosting his video content on X since being fired from Fox in the Spring, and Fox responded to this action by threatening to sue him with a cease and desist letter. Tucker’s lawyer dismissed the letter and said Fox was unfairly attempting to silence him.
According to Ben Shapiro, Fox News sent media companies a “guide” to covering the debate. It stipulated that no outlet was allowed to use more than three minutes of debate excerpts in any one program including video and audio in order to filter more views to its own network. Shapiro called the decision “nuts […] totally crazy.”
INSANE: per Fox News, any media covering tonight's debate are only allowed to post up to 3 minutes TOTAL of the footage. That’s about two clips for all coverage. By imposing these ridiculous restrictions they're not only depriving voters of relevant and important news, they are… pic.twitter.com/8dL0aTlc7W
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) August 23, 2023
The Associated Press also reported that while previous debates were allowed to be “simulcasted” across networks, Fox only allowed the debate to stream on Fox platforms. Furthermore, the Republican National Committee (RNC) partnered with Rumble to host the official online livestream of the debate in the spirit of “getting away from big tech.”
An op-ed in The Hill argued that Fox News was the “biggest loser” of the night because of a mixture of Trump’s boycott, bad questions, and lackluster performance from the candidates.
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Former CNN host Brian Stelter predicted Trump’s absence would slash Fox’s debate viewership in half. He also pointed out that Trump was using his indictment along with the interview to make a two-day publicity affair for himself.
Meanwhile, on the site of the debate in Milwaukee, WI, Don Jr. and his wife Kimberly Guilfoyle were blocked from accessing Fox’s post-debate “spin room.” They and other Trump aides were under the impression that they would be allowed back stage until they received a memo announcing Fox’s decision to restrict their access. Don Jr. suggested the network was unhappy with the quality of the GOP candidates, whom he believes they wish to boost, and that they wanted to suppress him from representing his more popular father.
BREAKING: Fox News ordered security to block Don Jr and Kim Guilfoyle from the post-debate spin room when they attempted to enter after the debate tonight.pic.twitter.com/oEDxx3zsOK
— Jack Poso 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) August 24, 2023
Trump took to his social media platform Truth Social in the days leading up to the debate to explain his decision to boycott it. He reasoned that since the public already knows where he stands on key issues such as the border, the military, and energy independence, and how he is leading the polls with “”legendary”” numbers, there is “no reason” for him to attend the debates (plural).
Before he chose to record an interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump had also considered showing up at the last minute, sitting in the audience and liveposting his reaction via Truth Social, holding a rally during it, or calling into other media networks to divert views from Fox.
On Aug. 9, Trump had declared he was refusing to sign the RNC pledge to support the eventual Republican nominee, which was a requirement to attend the first debate. He told media network Newsmax, “Why would I sign it? […] I can name three or four people that I wouldn’t support for president. So right there, there’s a problem.”
However, Trump had praise for candidates Vivek Ramaswamy and Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), saying they “have been very nice” to him.
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