MSNBC’s Morning Joe viewership ratings soared last week after Donald Trump attacked the show’s hosts through tweets.
According to Nielsen Ratings, 1.66 million people watched Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski the day after the tweets, a record viewership for the the news show. That’s almost a 70% increase compared to its usual audience. The previous viewership record for the show was the day after Trump was elected into office, Bloomberg reported.
Morning Joe usually averages 896,000 viewers, coming in second to Fox News Channel’s morning show, according to Bloomberg. On Friday, MSNBC show surpassed Trump’s favorite show, Fox and Friends in viewership. Even Trump himself tweeted he watched Morning Joe on Friday.
Scarborough and Brzezinski were friendly with Trump during his presidential campaign, and the president even offered to officiate their wedding, according to Vanity Fair. But the hosts have become increasingly critical of him, which may have resulted in Trump calling them “Psycho Joe” and “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” in multiple Twitter attacks over a span of several days.
In May, MSNBC’s prime time weekday ratings for 25-to-54-year-olds beat out Fox and CNN for the first time in 17 years, per Nielsen.