Four polls on the Senate Republican health-care bill were released on Wednesday, and the first three were straight-up brutal, with support for the Better Care Reconciliation Act at 17 percent (Marist), 16 percent (Quinnipiac), and 12 percent (USA Today/Suffolk University). "That's a level of popularity so low that it's difficult to believe the bill is being entertained," says Aaron Blake at The Washington Post. Fox News released its own poll Wednesday evening, and the bottom line was only a little better:
Despite it being a Fox News poll, neither it nor the Senate GOP's push to rewrite the BCRA in 48 hours to ensure passage in July were featured prominently on Fox News Wednesday night. Same on Tuesday night, when Senate leaders' decision to delay a vote on the bill was the top story elsewhere, notes David Weigel at The Washington Post. Instead, Fox News has been talking about CNN, Sarah Palin suing The New York Times, and Susan Rice. "The lack of 'ObamaCare repeal' coverage, unthinkable just six months ago, reflected a general decline of conservative interest in what had united Republicans for seven years," Weigel writes, continuing:
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Meanwhile, the White House and a symbiotic conservative media have largely moved on to other topics of media bias and cultural warfare. Fox's multiple segments on the CNN sting came after White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters to watch it. Rush Limbaugh, whose dominant talk show was live during the Senate news, barely mentioned it at all. ... On [Fox News], the only one that has scored presidential interviews this month, the repeal fight is covered as a priority of President Trump that his allies in Congress are doing a poor job of managing. [The Washington Post]
"Having spent years attacking ObamaCare, it may be a bridge too far for conservative talkers to urge Republicans to do it faster and with less transparency," Wisconsin talk-radio host Charlie Sykes tells Weigel. "How do you do a talk show saying: Hey, it's great that they did in secret! It's great — no hearings."
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