Trump takes second whack at Fox News

[Uncle Joe]

President Donald Trump took a second whack at Fox News on Tuesday, again expressing frustration that his favored network offered a platform for Sen. Bernie Sanders to connect with 2020 voters.

Without offering any evidence, Trump on Tuesday night accused Fox News of blocking his own supporters from attending the town hall the night before with Sanders.

(snip)

Before the event, however, Fox News anchor and town hall host Martha MacCallum spoke with The Morning Call about the event, including how the audience was picked. The Pennsylvania paper wrote, "Fox reached out to various political and local groups in the area and mined requests to attend after it publicly announced the event. Fox said 'hundreds' of people are on the waiting list."

(snip)

But while the president is a frequent guest on the network, he tends to stick to interviews with friendlier personalities like primetime opinion programming hosts Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, or the network's "Fox & Friends" morning show, where he receives almost unflinchingly positive coverage.

(snip)

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/17/trump-fox-news-bernie-sanders-1278845

[murielm99]

1. Trump might be telling the truth

for a change.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/128772826

[Uncle Joe]

4. Nothing in his history suggests that Trump is telling the truth.

The audience was a mixture of Republicans, Democrats and Independents, Bernie supporters and not but more to the point millions of Americans could not un-see Bernie's un-filtered message and Trump knows it.

Bernie took the fight directly to Trump's turf and popped the bubble for many of Trump's supporters.

[Skya Rhen]

22. Correct - which is why you were provided with independent evidence from a source

other than Trump.

[Uncle Joe]

24. You quoted one individual's subjective estimate, it could be he thought

there were more Bernie supporters because of the audience's response but it's also entirely possible that some minds were changed during the town hall.

I asked for hard evidence.

[Skya Rhen]

29. Hard evidence was provided that you refuse to accept.

[Uncle Joe]

30. and you joined a week ago, welcome to D.U.

[Skya Rhen]

34. Thank you. I am glad to be here and will remain until Joe Biden wins the general election.

Ever since Lucy Flores tried her little trick, I was motivated to get off the side lines and support the man that did not deserve to be smeared and that I have admired and respected for the last 30 years.

[WeekiWater]

2. Fox uses things like this to claim they are fair and to boost ratings.

It helps public establishments excuse having the network on in their waiting rooms, bars, work out facilities, etc. Events like the Sanders town hall helps the network continue to boost Republicans and gives our candidates a larger audience. It is not a black and white situation.

Please note, I have no issue with Sanders or any other Democrat going on the network. I also think it is a great move to not give any of our debates to Fox. I think we are taking the perfect approach to the network.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Bernie criticized FOX along with the media in general as well during the town hall.

No doubt FOX's Reich wing morning shows will claim "fair and balanced" but they can't do it without their own viewers actually being potentially exposed to Bernie's message via YouTube or elsewhere.

Their bubble has been popped, I totally agree with your last paragraph.

[WeekiWater]

10. Our people are on Fox all of the time. Fox has a large audience.

From civil rights activists to public servants. The left going on Fox is nothing new.

[Uncle Joe]

12. Not self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" Presidential Candidates speaking to a town hall.

Bernie spelled out clearly what his message was and I have no doubt it connected to Trump's voters, many of which had voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012.

[WeekiWater]

13. Actually, a self-proclaimed "democratic socialist" has done a town hall on Fox News before.

BS and Clinton did one.

[Uncle Joe]

14. Are suggesting that Clinton was/is a "democratic socialist?"

[WeekiWater]

16. No. I never made that suggestion. NT

[greymattermom]

3. Just wait until Buttigieg has a platform on Fox.

That should be fun to watch.

[Uncle Joe]

8. I commend Pete for that.

[Snotcicles]

5. Trumps trying to intimidate Fox into stacking the crowd with right wingers.

That is exactly why the democratic candidates quit going on Fox. I wonder if Fox sees that Trump is flaming out and they're trying to salvage market share to avoid going broke. If they are smart they will become more neutral in the coverage.

[Uncle Joe]

9. The audience was a mixture and most certainly millions of Americans viewing the town hall

live and millions more after the event were not Bernie supporters.

[Uncle Joe]

19. No but do you believe hundreds of thousands if not over a million T.V. or video viewers

out of 2.55 million estimated live viewing audience weren't Trump supporters wanting to see Bernie get his comeuppance on their favorite network?

They could not un-see nor un-hear Bernie's unfiltered message, this was something different than the Reich wing morning show propaganda pablum that they had been used to.

[ehrnst]

31. Well, if most were already Sanders supporters....

then there really wasn't that much they hadn't already seen and heard, was there?

And we already know that the house was packed with his supporters, so they weren't "converted" as much as they were "the regular choir."

[Skya Rhen]

23. According to one of the attendees, Mr. Nassar, 30% max were Trump voters

I previously posted an article on this thread (post #20) where he stated that around 70% of the audience were Bernie supporters, including himself...

[Skya Rhen]

20. Nice pivot but we are talking about the 70% of attendees who were Bernie supporters

that were actually at the townhall - not the tv watchers.

The purpose of the stacking of the audience, with Bernie supporters, was to unfairly influence the tv watchers (to which you refer) into believing that Medicare-for-all was widely accepted by a typical Fox audience inside the townhall.

But it turns out that the audience was mostly made up of Bernie supporters.

I wonder if Bernie agreed to this stacking, beforehand. I assume that Bernie's organizers and the Fox producers would have had some sort of advanced understanding...

[Uncle Joe]

21. Do you have any hard evidence as to how many in the studio audience were actually Bernie supporters?

The T.V. or video viewers are critical and can't be dismissed, they heard Bernie's unfiltered message.

Do you believe major shareholders of HCA didn't hear Bernie's message in the town hall or weren't influenced?

(snip)

The company’s shares shed $4 billion in market value on Tuesday as concerns about universal health-care coverage spread to the hospital industry. Analysts who cover HCA, the largest and most-widely owned hospital operator, have remained notably silent, sticking to their ratings and issuing no commentary on the 10 percent move.



(snip)

Analysts had looked to UnitedHealth Group Inc. for some relief from the recent sell-off. But the insurance company failed to quell concerns, saying that such drastic proposals would disrupt the health-care industry and existing private, public partnerships could be a better way toward universal coverage.

Reports that audiences cheered the government-run system proposal as it was being discussed by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont at a Fox News town hall on Monday only made things worse.

“The market is ascribing an inordinately high probability that some form of Medicare-for-All proposal could become reality,” Cowen analyst Charles Rhyee wrote in a note. The problem is that even support among centrist Democrats is “noticeably absent” and the proposal would likely see strong resistance from doctors and hospitals, said Rhyee, who covers health insurers.

(snip)

Or is that part of the conspiracy too?

[Uncle Joe]

26. Common sense should tell you that Republicans opposed to Bernie's message would also

be happy to view the town hall whether in the studio, T.V. or video in the hopes that he would have failed on their favorite network.

I mean "socialism" is the big taboo word with them right?

[Uncle Joe]

28. P.S. You just joined today, welcome to D.U.

[ehrnst]

32. Well there is this 'hard evidence' of a concerted effort to pack the house:

And there were reporters there:

Link to tweet

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1287&pid=72826

And definitely an effort to get Sanders supporters to turn on FoxNews to support him, and many did.

[Uncle Joe]

11. I agree with your analysis Snotcicles,

if FOX is smart they would become more neutral.

[Skya Rhen]

15. An attendee, Mr. Nassar, said he and 70% of the audience were Bernie supporters

Nassar, who was born and raised in the Lehigh Valley, said afterward he didn’t think America should intervene in foreign affairs unless it directly effects our national security.

“I do believe he is America first,” Nassar said of Sanders.

Nassar said he voted for Sanders in the 2016 primary, and was open-minded coming into Monday night’s event. He estimated about 70 percent of the audience was supportive of Sanders.

A crowd of Donald Trump supporters gathered April 15, 2019, outside SteelStacks in Bethlehem, ahead of the Sen. Bernie Sanders town hall. (Sarah Cassi | For lehighvalleylive.com)
lehighvalleylive.com

A crowd of Donald Trump supporters gathered April 15, 2019, outside SteelStacks in Bethlehem, ahead of the Sen. Bernie Sanders town hall. (Sarah Cassi | For lehighvalleylive.com)
As attendees walked toward the SteelStacks building, Trump supporters greeted them with Trump 2020 flags and signs including “Build the Wall” and “No Sanctuary for Criminals.”

****************************************************************************

SO IT APPEARS AS IF TRUMP MIGHT HAVE SEEN THE SAME ARTICLE...

[Uncle Joe]

18. IF his estimate is correct that means almost one out of three were not

and there no way to account for the political persuasion of millions of T.V. or video viewers but there can be no doubt hundreds of thousands if not over a million were Republicans wanting to see Bernie get his comeuppance on their favorite network.

[Politicub]

27. Hoping that Trump keeps kicking Fox

They’ll get sick of him (I can dream) like everyone else except for his tribe or whatever they’re called.

[LiberalLovinLug]

33. So its a bad thing that our party candidates supporters came out in force to this?

Kamala Harris co-sponsored the Medicare-For-All bill with Sanders. If word went out that she was doing a Fox town hall, and so many of her supporters came out and then cheered when she promoted MFA, would we have complainers on here about how "stacked" the hall was? Adding our voices to Trumps?

When people found out Bernie was going to be in town, in a town hall meeting at the station, many clammored to get in obviously. This is a good thing. No matter who ends up winning the primary. The more Fox zombies we can get to hear the benefits of having a Democratic President the better. (and lets be clear - Sanders and Warren may be rowing harder for more progressive policies than the other candidates, but they are all rowing in the same direction)

And say what you will, Bernie's got balls! He could have been drowned out and heckled off the stage with a Fox selected audience, he could have been attacked by the hosts unfairly with fake news and not been given a chance to respond......based on Fox's previous treatment of D guests. Which is why other Democrats are afraid to go on Fox. But he took the chance and held his own. Give him credit for that at least.