Trump-Musk conversation racks up historic-sized audience

NEWS AND OPINION:

Tesla founder and X boss Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump conducted a wide-ranging conversation on X on Monday evening. Yes, there were some glitches, but the exchange between the two drew a mammoth audience. Here are the numbers, as posted on X itself in the aftermath.

“Between 7:47 PM and 10:47 PM ET, President Donald Trump’s Space post received 73 million views. During the same period, there were 4 million posts about Elon Musk and President Trump’s conversation on X, generating a total of 998 million views,” the X post said.

That announcement itself also racked up 23.4 million views, as of 2 p.m. Tuesday. There was one other suggestion of note from Mr. Musk.

“Happy to host Kamala on an 𝕏 Spaces too,” he said in an extra message on the site formerly known as Twitter. The post drew 51.3 million views all on its own.

“President Trump will do everything he can to bring his unscripted message directly to the people, something the fake news media refuses to do. While Kamala Harris enjoys the luxury of hiding from the press, President Trump accepted Elon’s invitation to have an unfiltered conversation about his America First policies with voters and people around the world,” said Steven Cheung, communications director, in a written statement.

“The media can lie, but the numbers don’t: Americans are eager to hear from President Trump and his momentum is only growing as we get closer to November 5,” he said.

THE REVIEWS ARE IN

The aforementioned talk between Elon Musk and Donald Trump also attracted considerable media attention, and not without a few barbs being thrown in for good measure. Here are just a few headlines from the last 24 hours, and some were definitely critical:

“Trump and Musk host friendly conversation on X after delay from technical difficulties” (CNN); “Musk’s Trump Talk: After glitchy start, a two-hour ramble” (The New York Times), “Light on news, heavy on personality in Elon Musk and Donald Trump X interview” (NPR); “Musk boasts of 1 billion views for ’no limits’ X interview with Trump” (Fox News); “Elon Musk pitches White House role in glitchy Donald Trump interview” (Bloomberg), “’Trainwreck’: Trump has meandering, ’boring’ interview with Elon Musk” (MSNBC); “Trump returns to X with technical glitches, softball questions from Musk” (The Washington Post); and “Trump rambles, slurs his way through Elon Musk interview: It was an unmitigated disaster” (USA Today).

And just a few more:  “Cyberattack, inflation, immigration: Six takeaways from Trump-Musk chat” (Al Jazeera), and “The Trump-Musk snoozefest” (The Bulwark).

GARVEY’S COMMON SENSE

Baseball great Steve Garvey is running for the Senate, and appears determined to win over Californians and defeat his Democratic rival in the Golden State. That rival is Rep. Adam Schiff.

Mr. Garvey has agreed to participate in two statewide general election debates hosted by KABC-TV/ABC 7 Los Angeles, the League of Women Voters California and the Nexstar Media Group.

“I am committed to bringing a fresh perspective and common sense to Washington,” Mr. Garvey said in a written statement.

“These debates are an opportunity for the people of California to hear directly from us about the issues that matter most. I look forward to a civil and substantive discussion about our state’s future and how we can work together to solve the challenges we face,” he said.

The debate dates have not been announced yet.

GARVEY’S FUNDS

In the meantime, the aforementioned Steve Garvey raised $5.44 million from April 1 to June 30, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Adam Schiff’s campaign brought in $4.2 million.

“With just over 100 days until the election, Adam Schiff and the Democrats are gearing up for a fight. But I know that, with your help, we can win the toughest Senate race in America on November 5th. Remember, the same talking heads who said a Republican couldn’t win here also said we wouldn’t stand a chance in the “top two” primary system. They thought we’d embarrass ourselves,” Mr. Garvey said in a letter to his supporters.

“They were wrong then. They are wrong now. But our win in the March 5th primary will only matter if we finish the job by winning on November 5th,” Mr. Garvey added.

FOXIFIED

In the week of Aug. 5-11, Fox News enjoyed an average daily audience of 2.4 million primetime viewers, marking the 182nd consecutive week that it has been cable news’ most-watched network.

As usual, “The Five” was the top show over the week with a 3.4 million viewer daily average, followed by “Jesse Watters Primetime” with an average audience of 3.1 million, “Hannity” (2.7 million), “Gutfeld” (2.6 million), “The Ingraham Angle” (2.4 million) and “Special Report Wth Bret Baier” (2.3 million).

Fox News’ daytime programs continue to outrank their broadcast competition. Seen at noon on weekdays, Harris Faulkner’s show “The Faulkner Focus” drew an average daily audience of 1.8 million, compared with ABC’s “GMA3,” which averaged 1.3 million per day.

She is not alone in besting the daytime competition. “America Reports With Sandra Smith and John Roberts,” “America’s Newsroom With Dana Perino and Bill Hemmer” and “The Story With Martha MacCallum” all bested their ABC competition, each drawing average audiences of 1.7 million viewers.

POLL DU JOUR

• 40% of U.S. adults say Vice President Kamala Harris is “very liberal”: 78% of Republicans, 34% of independents and 9% of Democrats agree.

• 45% of men and 35% of women agree.

• 26% overall say Ms. Harris is “liberal”; 9% of Republicans, 19% of independents and 49% of Democrats agree.

• 25% of men and 27% of women agree.

• 18% overall say she is “moderate”; 4% of Republicans, 17% of independents and 32% of Democrats agree.

• 17% of men and 19% of women agree.

• 2% overall say she is “conservative”; 2% of Republicans, 3% of independents and 3% of Democrats agree.

• 2% of men and 3% of women agree.

• 2% overall say she is “very conservative”; 1% of Republicans, 2% of independents and 2% of Democrats agree.

• 1% of men and 2% of women agree.

• 12% are not sure of Ms. Harris’ ideology; 7% of Republicans, 25% of independents and 5% of Democrats agree.

• 10% of men and 15% of women agree.

SOURCE: An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,618 U.S. adults conducted online August 4-6.

• Follow Jennifer Harper on X @HarperBulletin, on Facebook @HarperUniverse.