As if it somehow sank the conservative agenda or upended a Fox News narrative, the ABC and CBS Tuesday evening news programs hailed the heavily Democratic Fox News town hall audience that cheered for Bernie Sander’s Medicare for All healthcare plan.
It was clear during ABC’s World News Tonight that they were going to twist the cheering crowd as proof that even Republicans supported government controlled healthcare. “Now, to the race for 2020 tonight, and the fiery town hall. Bernie Sanders on Fox News. And the question about health care in America, it drew a huge response from the audience,” hyped sensationalist anchor David Muir.
ABC congressional correspondent Mary Bruce was full of energy as she explained how Sanders was “at a town hall on the President’s favorite network” and “asked voters to embrace one of his most progressive ideas: Medicare for all.”
She played a soundbite of town hall co-moderator Brett Baier conducting an impromptu poll of the Pennsylvania audience to see support for Sanders’ plan:
I want to ask the audience a question, if you could raise your hands here, show of hands of how many people get their insurance from work, private insurance, right now. How many get it from private insurance? Okay. Now, of those, who many are willing to transition to what the Senator says, a government-run system.
[Audience members cheer]
“His Medicare for all plan, often criticized by Republicans, got an enthusiastic response last night from audience members of both parties,” boasted CBS political correspondent Ed O’Keefe on Evening News.
Even though Bruce also noted that the audience was made up of “Democrats and Republicans”, neither correspondent shared a soundbite of Baier explaining how “this audience has a lot of Democrats in it. It has Republicans, independents, democratic socialists, [and] conservatives.” In fact, ABC cut off a soundbite just as Baier was making that point.