Will Trump survive impeachment? The answer may lie with Fox News.
President Trump's strongest supporters are Fox News viewers, according to polls. If the network grows more critical of him, that could have an impact.
President Trump's strongest supporters are Fox News viewers, according to polls. If the network grows more critical of him, that could have an impact.
Dear reader:
Recently, Fox News鈥檚 Geraldo Rivera and Sean Hannity had聽a telling on-air exchange聽about the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump.
鈥淵ou know, if it wasn鈥檛 for your show, Sean, they would destroy him absolutely,鈥� Mr. Rivera said. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e the difference between Donald J. Trump and Richard Nixon.鈥�
Mr. Hannity demurred 鈥� but Mr. Rivera is聽hardly the first聽to hypothesize that, if a conservative outlet like Fox News had existed in the 1970s, President Nixon might have survived the Watergate scandal.
And while it鈥檚 unclear whether Republicans鈥� viewing habits are shaping their political beliefs or vice versa, polling shows that regular Fox News viewers are among President Trump鈥檚 strongest supporters. According to聽a new survey聽by the Public Religion Research Institute, 98% of Republicans who cite Fox as their primary news source oppose President Trump鈥檚 impeachment and removal from office.
Even more striking: 55% of those same Republicans say there is聽nothing聽the president could do to lose their support, compared with 29% of Republicans who do not cite Fox as their main source of information.
鈥淔ox controls the flow of information鈥攚hat facts are, whether allegations are to be believed鈥攖o huge swaths of [Trump鈥檚] base,鈥� Gabriel Sherman wrote last month聽in Vanity Fair. 鈥淎nd Republican senators, who will ultimately decide whether the president remains in office, are in turn exquisitely sensitive to the opinions of Trump鈥檚 base.鈥�
Yet Fox itself has been showing a few cracks of late. After last week鈥檚 announcement that the next G7 would be held at President Trump鈥檚 resort in Miami, a number of Fox personalities labeled the move an 鈥渦nforced error鈥� 鈥撀燼nd the president quickly backtracked.
On-air sniping over impeachment coverage between daytime anchor Shep Smith and evening host Tucker Carlson reportedly resulted in Mr. Smith鈥檚 abrupt decision to leave the network. And Mr. Sherman reports that Lachlan Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 son, has聽been 鈥渉olding strategy conversations with Fox executives and anchors about how Fox News should prepare for life after Trump.鈥�
It鈥檚 worth remembering that Fox was not particularly pro-Trump during the 2016 Republican primary campaign, notes New York magazine鈥檚 Jonathan Chait. And 鈥渋f the two began to work at cross-purposes,鈥澛爃e speculates, 鈥渋t would likely turn on him as rapidly as it fell in line after he won the nomination.鈥�
At the moment, however, that鈥檚 pretty hard to envision.
Let us know what you鈥檙e thinking at聽csmpolitics@csmonitor.com.