CNN’s Sparsely-Attended Biden Town Hall Flops in the Cable News Ratings

by Debra Heine

 

CNN’s town hall event with Joe Biden bombed Wednesday night, trailing not only Fox News, but also MSNBC in the Nielsen ratings.

The town hall train-wreck, which was moderated by Don Lemon at Mount St. Joseph University in Cincinnati, Ohio, reportedly averaged only 1.5 million viewers from 8-9:30 p.m. ET, compared to 2.7 million viewers for Fox News during the same time period.

MSNBC averaged 1.6 million viewers, placing CNN’s highly promoted event in third place among the top cable news stations. A CNN town hall with Biden in February did significantly better, drawing 3.5 million viewers, and beating the audience of both Fox News and MSNBC.

The sparsely-attended event was dubbed a train-wreck after Biden repeatedly struggled to focus, babbling incoherently when asked to address important issues.

Fox News beat CNN by a staggering 83 percent during the Biden town hall with regular programing on “Tucker Carlson Tonight” and a special edition of “Hannity” that featured Florida Republicans Gov. Ron DeSantis, Sen. Marco Rubio, Rep. Maria Salazar and Miami Mayor Francis Suarez.

Every Fox News town hall event over the past five years outdrew Wednesday’s CNN event with Biden.

CNN’s town hall also failed to beat Fox News among the key demographic of adults age 25-54. CNN averaged 306,000 demo viewers during the event, compared to 464,000 for Fox News.

CNN didn’t just finish last during the Biden town hall. The liberal network also finished behind Fox News and MSNBC during the primetime hours of 8-11 p.m. ET.

Fox News averaged 2.3 million primetime viewers and MSNBC finished second with 1.6 million. Despite President Biden appearing on the network, CNN settled for only 1.3 million primetime viewers.

While Biden failed to lift the struggling network from last place, it did helped Lemon surpass the one-million viewer threshold that he fails to meet on a regular basis.

At one point during the town hall, Biden attempted to dissuade vaccine skeptics with a stream of consciousness word salad that even his most loyal supporters couldn’t decipher.

“Are you okay? You see now it works, or-or-or- the mom and dad, or-or-or the neighbor, or when you go to church, or when you’re, I-I-I really mean it,” Biden stuttered. “There are trusted interlocutors. Think of the people. If your kid wanted to find out whether or not there were—there was a man on the moon or you know something, or whether those aliens are here or not. I mean, who are the kids they’re talking to beyond the kids who love talking about it,” he said.

During another very bizarre moment, Biden claimed QAnon adherents believe that he and other Democrats are “hiding people and sucking the blood of children.”

He repeated the ghoulish line later Wednesday night when asked by White House reporter Shelby Talcott if members of his party want to defund the police. “Are there people in the Republican party who think we’re sucking the blood out of kids?” Biden asked in response.

“I-I’m not sure,” the confused reporter replied, as Biden smugly walked off.

Fox News pointed out another interesting moment during the town hall, when Lemon referred to Biden as “the big guy,” which is how his influence-peddling son Hunter Biden referred to his dad when finagling corrupt deals with a Communist Chinese energy firm.

“You’ve been the big guy for six months now in the White House. Can you take us behind the scenes, something that was extraordinary or unusual that happened that stands out to you?” Lemon asked.

“The big guy” was notably used as a reference to Biden in a leaked email thread allegedly involving Joe’s son Hunter Biden making a deal with a Chinese energy firm. In 2020, Fox News confirmed the authenticity of an email dated May 13, 2017 that detailed a discussion for “remuneration packages” for people involved in a business deal. A section of the email contained a propriety split reading “10 held by H for the big guy?” which was later confirmed to reference Joe Biden.

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y.  made note of the gaffe in a tweet: “Wow. Even Don Lemon knows Joe Biden is the “Big Guy”! #HuntersEmails,” she wrote.

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Debra Heine is a conservative Catholic mom of six and longtime political pundit. She has written for several conservative news websites over the years, including Breitbart and PJ Media. She is a contributor to the Center for American Greatness.
Photo “Biden Town Hall” by Jennifer Epstein (via Twitter).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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