Some straight news from CNN's media correspondent, Brian Stelter:
Fox News likely had 11 million to 13 million viewers for the debate … [and] an 8.4 household rating….
The most recent GOP debate, televised two weeks ago on the harder-to-find Fox Business Network, had a household rating of 7.4. So Thursday's debate was bigger — but not by much. The other five GOP debates of the cycle have had household ratings ranging from 8.9 to 15.9. That's why Trump can claim victory.
Even though, that is, Trump's campaign manager had forecast a paltry viewing audience of "1 or 2 million people." But who's counting? Who cares? This is Trumpworld, where straight news tends to get a trifle bent.
Stelters adds, parenthetically, that Trump's "campaign had no immediate comment about the ratings on Friday."
Yet Trump, with characteristic bluster, won the second round, too, telling CNN that "an unnamed Fox executive" had "apologized" for the network's bad manners. And bad they were, I must say — not in Trump's defense, but in appalled reaction to the network's childish, almost unbelievably unprofessional assault on a presidential candidate, however much of a clown he might be. That's just not done — not even in the professional sewer of Fox News.
Which, of course, didn't quite see its "apology" to Trump as an apology. "The network suggested that it didn't apologize outright -- instead it, 'acknowledged his concerns about a satirical observation we made in order to quell the attacks on Megyn Kelly, and prevent her from being smeared any further.'"
Let's see, how many rings does this circus now have? Like Trump's campaign manager's, my count may be a bit under.