Feb 8 (Reuters) - An estimated 23.4 million people watched U.S. President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech on the biggest TV networks Tuesday, according to early ratings figures from Nielsen and shared with Reuters by Fox News and NBCUniversal, down from total viewership last year. Biden's early audience figure came in below the final ratings total for former President Donald Trump's first State of the Union speech in 2018, which attracted close to 46 million people. Biden's March 2022 address to Congress attracted an estimated 38.2 million viewers across 16 channels.
And the biggest critics of Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response were her fellow right-wingers. 'Insulting': Right-wingers torch Sarah Huckabee Sanders' State of the Union response https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/poli...-of-the-union-response/ar-AA17giYF?li=BBnb7Kz Arkansas Republican Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders delivered the Republican Party’s official response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union Address and was panned from all sides. Many on the left were angered and outraged as she attacked LGBTQ and Black Americans in a lengthy speech that was tall on culture war rhetoric and extremism and short on policy or vision. But even those on the right seems exasperated with her remarks. Lou Dobbs, the far-right-wing culture warrior and former Fox Business anchor, told former Trump White House chief strategist Steve Bannon that Huckabee Sanders’ speech was “unacceptable,” and, “an insult to President Trump” for “not mentioning his name,” as Media Matters reports. “Sarah Huckabee went to Iraq with the President,” Dobbs recalled, which the former White House press secretary spent an unusually large portion of her remarks discussing, “and the First Lady in the dark of night, for Christmas, with our troops.” “To not mention his name, to talk about ‘new leadership’ – it looked like the Governor’s Association had written much of that speech, and aligned themselves with Ron DeSantis,” Dobbs lamented, calling it a “lack of respect to POTUS.” Bannon, convicted on two federal criminal contempt charges, agreed that her remarks were “an insult to Trump.” “She does not exist, politically, if it’s not for President Trump,” Bannon continued. “I thought the speech was terrible.” “If you’re going to give a counter speech, you’ve got to talk about important issues. Don’t get me wrong, the wokeism is very important. But it’s not quite the heart of the matter right now, right? It’s not the heart of the matter. She is not — the reason is she’s just not — she’s not intellectually capable of going to the heart of the matter, right? Let’s be blunt.” “This was like written by Ron DeSantis and the entire RGA,” Bannon said, referring to the Republican Governors’ Association.
Sarah Sanders roasted by hometown paper for 'word salad' SOTU response Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union Address was roundly slammed by Austin Bailey in an editorial for the Arkansas Times published on Wednesday. Excerpts her office shared earlier in the day hinted Sanders’ speech would include her standard snarling about wokeness and the radical left. No surprises there." Among other things, Sanders claimed that a "woke mob" was taking over the United States, and under Biden, "we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags and worship their false idols." She even claimed that when Trump was president, she sort of felt like she was in the military, when she wasn't. The speech, wrote Bailey, was "a word salad of talking points and name calling, with some attempts at folksy relatability thrown in," that was "light on policy, heavy on menace."
I think I said in an earlier post that when she said some good things about the Trump administration but then later also said that it was time for a new generation of candidates that that was very "dicey." It signaled that she was not signing up to endorse Trump. And these so called right wingers dissing her saw that blood in the water. But that's all fine. She was invited to give the republican response and so there we have it. The same thing is going on in the dem party but even more fiercely. ie. Dems are dissing other dems for hinting that they may not be supporting Biden if they talk about it being time for a new generation. Dems should not worry too much about how supporting Biden and moving on are compatible. They aren't. On the pub side, it is about Ron DeSantis. And Lou Dobbs and Steve Bannon will have to work it out on the playground with anyone who is not pledging to Trump right now. That's their job, not mine or Sarah's. I have an answer to the Trump "issue" and you do not have an answer to the Biden and Kamala as well issue. That's fine. We have primaries, the candidates can do some work to get votes or they can hang out on twitter like Trump or hang out in the basement like Joe. Do whatever you want. I am perfectly capable of assessing it and making a decision. Meanwhile, Sarah did a great job.
It does not matter who the Democrats put forward but, if the Republicans continue to tolerate election fraud in their state, their nominee could suffer another loss like on November 8, 2020. Ballot harvesting is still alive and well and other shennanigans of the RINOs in Arizona and Georgia on top of it too. That is why there was no red wave despite, huge numbers of hispanics and blacks moved to vote against Joe Biden and Democrats in the midterm elections. Someone said, what matters is who counts the votes. No statement is more true even today.
Watch: Donald Trump Jr. suggests President Joe Biden stole his father's ideas in State of the Union speech
Quite so. And for the reasons you stated, it is very troubling that Harmeet was not elected RNC Chair. She understands all those points, and Ronna McRomney is same old/same old. A real opportunity there was lost. Now we are back to watching poor showings one election night but "not to worry, Republicans like to show up late and vote in person." OR NOT.
If the Democrats win again, you know the fix was in because with Trump and DeSantis as probably, the likely Republican nominee, only widespread cheating will allow the Democrats to win yet, again.