Former special counsel Robert Mueller has sparked so much buzz on the internet in 2019 that he’s outpaced social media interactions from both the Game of Thrones finale and Avengers: Endgame, according to an Axios data report.
Articles about Mueller last week produced 14.3 million social media interactions from just Monday to Friday. The former special counsel delivered a high-profile testimony in front of the House Judiciary and Intelligence committees last Wednesday.
For comparison, the week of the Game of Thrones season finale generated 10.2 million article interactions while the week that the highest-grossing film Avengers: Endgame was released saw 10.5 million interactions.
Still, the number of social media interactions during Mueller’s hearing did not come close to the astonishing 30.1 million interactions generated during the week the Mueller report dropped.
That number topped the 26.8 million social media interactions triggered by the Super Bowl and the 15.2 million produced by the Oscars for their respective weeks in February.
The 74-year-old former special counsel wrapped up his shaky appearance in front of both committees after facing more than five hours of harsh grilling from both Republicans and Democrats. Mueller was seen by some as failing to provide prime-time television clips, choosing to defer many questions to the facts of his 448-page report on Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The number of House Democrats supporting impeachment proceedings to move forward against President Trump increased to 107 in the aftermath of the hearing despite the low-energy testimony from Mueller — 11 short of a majority in the Democratic caucus.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi remains opposed to impeachment proceedings for now.
“Everybody has the liberty and the luxury to espouse their own position and to criticize me for trying to go down the path in the most determined, positive way,” Pelosi said at her final weekly press conference before leaving Washington while the House goes on a six-week recess. “Again, their advocacy for impeachment only gives me leverage.”
“A decision will be made in a timely fashion,” she said. “This isn’t endless, and when we have the best, strongest possible case and that’s not endless either.”
A new ABC/Ipsos poll released Sunday showed that nearly half of Americans who watched or read about Mueller’s hearing said their opinions on impeachment remained unmoved.
NewsWhip, a social media analytics company, compiled the data for Axios.
