President Obama will make his ninth address to the nation tonight, his fourth from the East Room. (He’s delivered two speeches from behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.) Here’s a breakdown of Obama’s eight other national addresses, by the numbers:
- Obama’s first Oval Office speech was on June 15th, 2010, in which he addressed the explosion of the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Gulf coast. The broadcast drew 32 million viewers.
- Obama’s second Oval Office speech was only two and a half months later, on August 31st, in which he announced the formal end of the Iraq War. The speech lasted about 20 minutes and drew 29 million viewers.
- The president’s most-viewed national address was his announcement of the death of Osama Bin Laden on June 22, 2011. 57 million viewers tuned in. This speech was given from the East Room.
- Obama’s next two speeches in the East Room were about the way forward in Afghanistan, on June 22, 2011, and the debt ceiling, on July 25, 2011.
- The other locations of Obama’s national addresses include West Point, National Defense University, and Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
- Every national address by Obama has begun between 7pm and 9pm EST, with the exception of the announcement of Bin Laden’s death, which happened at 11:35pm EST.
Evan Puschak