Former President Donald Trump’s counter-programming debate interview with Tucker Carlson garnered an astonishing 80 million views within just two hours of being posted on the platform X.

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Trump’s interview with Tucker majorly overshadowed the first GOP debate. The interview was purposefully made public by Tucker Carlson five minutes before the Republican primary debate in Milwaukee got underway at 9:00 p.m. EDT.

Surprisingly, the video had already received 33 million views in the first fifteen minutes of the debate. In just 25 minutes, this number skyrocketed to almost 55 million views, and in just the first 30 minutes, it achieved an astounding 70 million views.

Furthermore, Nielsen Media Research data from the second quarter of 2023 shows that Fox News received an average of 1.1 million views daily.

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Donald Trump, the current front-runner for the GOP nomination, made an earlier announcement on social media this week in which he declared his decision not to participate in the debate. He pointed to his “legendary” poll numbers, which indicate that he holds a substantial 46-point lead over his fellow Republican contenders, as the rationale for his absence from the event.

Trump made a post on Truth Social, he wrote, “The public knows who I am & what a successful Presidency I had, with Energy Independence, Strong Borders & Military, Biggest EVER Tax & Regulation Cuts, No Inflation, Strongest Economy in History, & much more. I WILL THEREFORE NOT BE DOING THE DEBATES!”

In a conversation with Carlson, Trump questioned the value of spending an hour or two, or however long the debate would be, enduring what he perceived as harassment from candidates who, in his view, shouldn’t even be running for president on a network that he didn’t consider particularly friendly to him.

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Trump directed his criticism specifically at former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, describing Christie as a candidate with a low approval rating of 8% in New Jersey who was now running for president primarily on an anti-Trump platform.