3.8 Million Viewers Watch Trump ‘Virtual Town Hall’

Fox News dominated the cable news ratings Sunday night, with nearly 4 million viewers watching a “virtual town hall” event with President Trump. The special, America Together: Returning to Work drew a total audience of 3.82 million viewers between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. ET.

In the special, the president took questions from viewers and from Fox News anchors Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum while seated inside the Lincoln Memorial. Mr. Trump sought to invigorate the economy, saying “we have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible” even as he dramatically increased what he described as the anticipated number of Americans to die from the coronavirus pandemic—80,000 or 90,000 people. Mr. Trump said the number remained well below the worst case scenarios first floated by his advisers, insisting that “we did the right thing and I really believe we saved a million and a half lives.”

It was one of the president’s first trips outside the White House since the pandemic swept across the country, and he said of the setting “we never had a more beautiful set than this.”

The special easily outdistanced the competition on cable news, with 1.17 million viewers watching CNN and 678,000 viewers tuning in to MSNBC. Among viewers 25-54, the demographic group most valued by advertisers, Fox News drew 637,000 viewers, well ahead of CNN (294,000) and MSNBC (105,000), according to ratings data compiled by Nielsen.