Fox News’s town hall with former President Donald Trump garnered more viewers than CNN’s coverage of the latest GOP presidential primary debate in Iowa, which was a showdown between Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley (R).
The Nielsen company recently reported that the Trump town hall received 4.3 million viewers, compared to the 2.6 million who watched the GOP debate. Both events occurred in Des Moines, Iowa.
Trump’s Town Hall Almost Doubled CNN’s Republican Debate in Ratings https://t.co/dzb2Qt3570
— LeoTerrell (@TheLeoTerrell) January 12, 2024
Trump, who has trounced all his challengers vying for the GOP’s presidential nomination, topped the Haley-DeSantis debate in several viewership demographics, including those ages 25-54.
The former president, who leads Haley by nearly 40 percentage points in the Iowa primary, according to RealClearPolitics, said he already knows who he will choose as his running mate during the Fox News town hall.
Fox News hosts Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum, who moderated the event with Trump, asked the former president who he would choose as his vice presidential pick for the 2024 election.
“I can’t tell you that really, I mean, I know who it’s going to be,” the former president responded.
Baier and MacCallum then pushed Trump to “give us a hint” about his potential running mate, to which the former president replied, “We’ll do another show sometime.”
Trump also spoke of the “hoaxes” perpetrated by the left during his first and second presidential bids, including investigations by the FBI that the former president’s campaign engaged in a scheme with the Russian government to “steal” the 2016 presidential election and allegations that the bombshell report of Hunter’s Biden’s laptop was “Russian disinformation.”
When asked by the Fox News hosts if a hypothetical second Trump administration would focus on achieving “retribution” against Democrats, the former president said he would have no time to go after the left. Instead, he would devote his time to fixing the problems taking America by storm.
“Well, first of all, a lot of people would say that that’s not so bad,” Trump replied. “Look what they did — Russia Russia Russia hoax, the FBI-Twitter hoax, the 51 intelligence agents hoax, all of these different hoaxes that they did. I mean, you know, a lot of people would say, that’s probably quite normal.”
“We’re going to make this country so successful again, I’m not gonna have time for retribution,” Trump added. “Our ultimate retribution is success.”
