Once again Fox News drew the ire of President Trump by featuring Pete Buttigieg during a town-hall style event, similar to the one Fox hosted for Bernie Sanders about a month ago.
Both of these incidents, along with recent hirings by Fox News of traditionally Democratic commentators like Donna Brazile has angered Conservative viewers and even had Trump himself Tweeting in disapproval.
After the Fox News Bernie Sanders town hall, I wrote how I was disappointed in Fox’s choice to give Sanders a platform, and I still stand by that. However, I think due to the recent changes in the cable news landscape, these moves by Fox may actually help Trump more than help his opponents in 2020.
After the Mueller report came out stating there was no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, MSNBC and CNN have both tanked in the ratings. Just last week CNN was down almost 50% in total viewers and they are down just as bad in key demographic areas like adults 18-54 years old.
Those viewers that have abandoned CNN and MSNBC are still out there, and they are probably open to watching a new news outlet if they can find one. Of course, this is what Fox is doing by throwing those viewers a bone in the form of programming such as the Bernie Sanders town hall event. Fox is hoping to snag a few of those viewers that have recently abandoned CNN or MSNBC.
Of course, I’m not saying that die-hard MSNBC viewers will now suddenly become Fox viewers and then Trump supporters. But some of those viewers that were lost by CNN and MSNBC were moderate independents. Not all of them, but some. And if those moderate viewers can be lured into watching Fox news, an outlet that is covering Trump in an honest way, some of them may jump on board to support Trump. Or at the very least, realize that the news outlets they had previously watched were insanely biased against Trump.
In fact, Democrats probably realize this is the case as The Daily Beast had and article today promoting Samantha Bee’s recent late night rant imploring Democratic candidates to not go on Fox News at all.
During Samantha Bee’s rant which The Daily Beast featured, she said going on Fox News will only make candidates “look stupid”. This is evidence that some Democratic elites realize that if former CNN and MSNBC viewers take a look at Fox News and see fair Trump coverage, some of them may break their programming and realize they’ve been lie to for last 2 years.
I’m not sure how much of an impact this will have or if Fox’s plan to try to lure in former viewers of CNN and MSNBC will even work. But if they do manage to bring in a percentage of those lost viewers and show them Trump is actually doing positive things as President, it can only help Trump’s chances at capturing moderates in crucial 2020 swing states.
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