Overview

• The Lead with Jake Tapper averaged 525,000 viewers from April 28 to May 25, marking a 25% decline from the same period last year and contributing to CNN’s second-worst performance among adults 25–54 in May.
• Fox News’s The Five and Special Report with Bret Baier outpaced Tapper by averaging 3.3 million viewers in the same timeslot, while MSNBC drew just over one million.
• Tapper’s extensive promotion of Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again failed to arrest the show’s ratings slump.
• In recent interviews, Tapper expressed “tremendous humility” about his past Biden coverage and apologized to Lara Trump for dismissing her concerns over the president’s cognitive decline.
• CNN stressed that U.S.-only Nielsen ratings omit its broader audience on CNN International and the Max streaming platform.