About 47.7 million people tuned in to watch President Trump's first speech to a joint session of Congress Tuesday, according to Nielsen data. A solid number, but far fewer than the number of people who watched the first addresses to Congress from former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama.
Clinton dwarfed Trump's roughly 48 million viewers with 66.9 million when he first addressed Congress in 1993 and more than 52 million people watched Obama's speech in 2009. Trump did do dramatically better than George W. Bush, whose 2001 speech had about 39.8 million viewers.
The Nielsen ratings do not include the number of people who might have livestreamed the event on computers or mobile devices.
