Bill Maher mocked Donald Trump's Dallas convention ratings on Friday's episode of Real Time with Bill Maher, turning the president's favorite insult, "ratings-challenged," back on him. Trump's primetime speech at the Republican midterm convention in Dallas drew roughly 2.5 million viewers on Fox News, according to reports cited by the Daily Beast and Daily Express US, fewer than Hannity or Gutfeld pull on an ordinary night. Do you regularly watch Fox News?

The jab cuts because it uses Trump's own yardstick. The president has spent years branding Maher a "low-ratings failure". The two-day Dallas gathering was framed by Trump as an unprecedented kickoff to the midterm season. Whether the sparse upper sections matter politically is unclear; conventions are as much about television imagery as ballroom turnout, and the imagery this week was mixed. The ratings shortfall is the harder number to spin, since Trump's own network aired it and the comparison Maher invoked came from the president's favorite measuring stick. Do you think that Trump is losing his appeal with his some of his 2024 re-election voters?

There is a fair counterargument, though. The Wednesday address aired against the NFL season opener, and a 106-minute speech competing with a Super Bowl rematch was never going to post peak numbers. Whether that's an excuse or an indictment depends on how you read the scheduling, which Maher framed as a self-inflicted wound rather than bad luck on Trump's part. Do you think that Trump's MAGAs watched NFL football instead of Trump on both nights of the "Trumpapalooza"?