President Donald Trump’s primetime speech on the war in Afghanistan drew roughly 27.7 million viewers on Monday night, a small audience for such an event considering that Trump’s first joint address to Congress drew more than 47 million viewers.
Viewership also fell below that for Trump’s primetime announcement that Neil Gorsuch was his pick to the U.S. Supreme Court, which averaged 33 million viewers.
The Afghanistan speech kicked off shortly after 9 p.m. ET and wrapped up around 9:30 p.m. ET. NBC picked up the most viewers during that time, averaging 6.2 million to edge ABC’s 5 million viewers.
CBS averaged 4.2 million and Fox broadcast picked up 2.3 million total viewers during the speech. On cable, Fox News led the way by averaging 5 million viewers, while MSNBC averaged 2.7 million viewers and CNN brought in another 2.3 million.
Worse news for the TV-obsessed POTUS: Barack Obama drew over 40 million viewers back in 2009 when he made his own speech about the war in Afghanistan, according to CNN.
It remains to be seen how the president will react to what many in the television industry consider a low turnout.
But as New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted before the speech on Friday, “If people don’t tune in/the ratings are not strong for his first prime time address, it will compound a sense of frustration he already has.”