Viraldice: Trump Lied and Said His State of the Union Ratings Set a Record. They Did Not.

udging by the amount of time Donald Trump spent clapping into the microphone about things he himself had just said, it's pretty clear that he was over-the-moon about his own performance at the State of the Union address earlier this week.

In general, he's one of the most self-congratulatory people in existence. His ability to fabricate praise for himself out of thin air is bar none.

Donald Trump thought he did a pretty incredible job at the State of the Union address.

Even though the speech was riddled with lies and the exploitation of grieving families, he didn’t like, drool or anything, so he considered it a win. The problem is, he considered it a way bigger win than it was.

Trump woke up early this morning, pulled himself out from under his race car sheets, and tweeted this:

“45.6 million people watched, the highest number in history,” he wrote of his State of the Union speech.

There are several problems with this. First, 45.6 million is not the highest number in history. 45.7 million is higher.

And if we want to get more specific, 45.6. million isn’t even the highest number of people in history who’ve watched a State of the Union speech. Several presidents beat that several times over. Donald Trump lied. Yet again.

Let’s take a look at who’s beat him…

Bill Clinton

According to Nielsen, the real TV ratings experts, in 1993 Bill Clinton drew in 66.9 million viewers for his State of the Union address.

I don’t know if you know this, but 66.9 million is a much bigger number than 45.6 million.

In 1998, 53 million tuned in to Clinton’s speech. That’s also more than 45.6 million.

Dubbya

Even George W. Bush, the other worst president in history, beat out Donald Trump’s SOTU ratings on more than one occasion. In 2002, 51.7 million watched and in 2003, 62 million tuned in.

Barack Obama

Oh yes, here’s the kicker. Sworn enemy of Donald Trump, the guy whose presidency Trump is hell-bent on undoing, also beat Trump in his first SOTU in 2009 (52.4 million watched). The next year, in 2010, that number dropped to 48 million.

However, 48 million is still more than 45.6 million.

Hmm. I wonder how the Internet reacted to this news…