Trump brutally mocked for 'embarrassing' numbers after launch of Trump TV

Donald Trump’s White House has only just switched on its new 24-hour YouTube channel, but the rollout has already sparked plenty of reactions online.

Dubbed Trump TV: The Essentials Station, the livestream began broadcasting on Monday (Sept. 21), offering viewers a continuous rotation of speeches, appearances, and clips featuring the US president.

Its arrival came days after Trump announced CNN, MS NOW, and Politico would be banned from the White House, accusing the three outlets of publishing what he described as ‘FAKE NEWS.’

The dispute then widened when ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox suspended presidential pool coverage after CNN was prevented from carrying out its scheduled duties.

After all of that, the White House promoted Trump TV as another way to watch material from the administration.

The stream’s audience fell sharply during its first night on YouTube (NurPhoto/Contributor/Getty Images)

However, the audience figures recorded during its first night have now become a major talking point.

According to The Daily Beast, around 8,000 people were watching when the stream launched at 7pm, before that number fell below 4,000 roughly 90 minutes later.

By around 10.40pm, the audience had dropped to 2,425 viewers, while just 1,123 were reportedly tuned in at approximately 3.30am.

At the time, the stream was showing a rerun of a speech Trump gave alongside King Charles during a visit to Windsor the previous year.

Things dipped even further the following morning, with a screenshot shared by the outlet showing 996 people watching as another older Trump speech played.

The Daily Beast noted that the existing White House YouTube channel carrying the stream has over 3 million followers (3.27 million at the time of writing), making the live audience a small fraction of its overall following.

The stream did later recover to around 1,700 viewers as Trump prepared to address the United Nations General Assembly.

Still, the lower figures quickly made their way across social media, where critics wasted little time making jokes at the channel’s expense.

One Facebook user responded: “Finally! A way to turn Trump off!”

The president has defended his restrictions imposed on CNN, MS NOW and Politico last week (Finn Gomez/Staff/Getty Images)

Another simply asked: “The Truman Show 2.0?”, referencing the 1998 Jim Carrey comedy-drama about a man who doesn’t realise he’s been trapped in a reality show his whole life.

Over on X (formerly Twitter), a commenter reacted to the audience numbers by writing: “Wow, a 1,000 watching, 100s of millions not”.

Reddit users also joined in, with one person joking by linking the channel to a real-life reality show this time: “It only has one show on it. The Biggest Loser!”

Another Reddit commenter put those numbers into an interesting perspective: “8000 people tuned into Trump TV and after a couple of hours only 996 were still watching….so, like 20 Trumpers in every state.”

Following the press ban, the White House has presented the service as a way of highlighting Trump’s record directly.

Deputy assistant Kaelan Dorr, for instance, said: “the press, in some cases, reported inaccurately or not at all on the Administration’s many record-breaking accomplishments” whilst promoting the stream as a go-to stream for Trump content.

Trump has also continued to defend the separate restrictions imposed on CNN, MS NOW and Politico.

The three organisations have since filed a lawsuit challenging the ban, arguing it violates First Amendment protections, whilst the legal dispute over their White House access continues.