Former GOP congressman and current Truth Social CEO Devin Nunes got a lot more than he bargained for when he suggested on Fox News that the conservative network had “destroyed” MSNBC with its decision not to air any of the January 6 committee’s public hearing on Thursday evening.
Nunes was a guest Sunday on “Media Buzz,” and he immediately told host Howard Kurtz that the recent hearings were biased and worthless because there are no supporters of failed former president Donald Trump on the Jan. 6 committee.
Kurtz countered by asking:
“Does that mean the media shouldn’t cover it much? Does it mean they should dismiss videotaped deposition from the likes of Bill Barr, Jason Miller, Jared Kushner?”
Nunes then tried to suggest that ratings for the hearing were a bust:
“To put this in primetime, the numbers were way down. So I don’t understand how these big corporations — I know it was spread across some 20 different networks — when you compare Fox News which didn’t which did not air that live, it just destroyed CNN and MSNBC in the ratings, right?”
But Kurtz wasn’t about to let Nunes blatantly lie about the ratings, countering him by noting:
“Networks like MSNBC did very well covering this hearing. Obviously, it would appeal to the liberal viewers of that network.”
As a matter of fact, 20 million people watched Thursday’s broadcast of the hearings. Fox, on the other hand, only drew about 3 million viewers:
According to the New York Times, at least 20 million viewers tuned in to watch the hearings. Only 3 million opted for Fox, which deliberately avoided televising the historic event.
An audience of at least 20 million people watched the first prime-time hearing of the House Select Committee’s investigation into the Jan. 6 attack on Thursday night, according to Nielsen.
ABC attracted the biggest audience, with 5.2 million viewers. NBC and CBS each had an audience of more than three million. MSNBC averaged more than four million, and CNN drew 2.7 million. (The 20 million figure did not yet include PBS, so the total audience was most likely a bit bigger.)
As usual, Nunes and the other pro-Trump Republicans would rather lie than face facts.