Chris Wallace, the former Fox News host, debuted a new show on CNN on Sunday, but ratings for the first episode were less than stellar.
Nielsen ratings show that not many people tuned in to “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace,” with The Washington Examiner reporting, “The ratings show that there were 401,000 viewers, down 29% from the average, and 44,000 among those aged 25 to 54, down 64% from the average.”
His competition on Fox News “Sunday Night in America with Trey Gowdy,” garnered 1.3 million viewers and 78,000 in the 25 to 54 demographic.
Wallace’s first guest was former Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer, a liberal, who defended the court after its decision to end Roe v. Wade.
Wallace began, saying, “I want to talk to you about public opinion. You like to quote Alexander Hamilton, who said that the court does not have purse like Congress, does not have the sword like the executive. That it depends on public acceptance for its authority.”
“You talked earlier about public opinion,” the host continued. “Look at the Gallup poll, which has measured approval of the courts since the year 2000. In July, the month after Dobbs, 43% approved of the way the Supreme Court does its job while 55% disapprove. That’s the most negative margin in the history of the court, worse than right after Bush v. Gore. You talk about social harmony, but when the court undoes a right that people have lived with for half a century, doesn’t that very much shake the authority of the court?”
“If you’re going to be a judge, you do not worry about popularity,” the former justice began, “You do not worry about what the general public will say by way of public opinion. And if you do that going over a very small edge here, people won’t accept your opinion. They’ll think you’re a group of politicians and there have been some bad days in the history of the court.”
He continued, “And I start complaining about the ones that I didn’t like, I think you know what Abraham Lincoln said, when he read Dred Scott. He said, That’s a shocker. And you say did I like this Dobbs decision? Of course I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. Was I happy about it? Not for an instant. Did I do everything I could to persuade people? Of course, of course. But there we are and now we go on. We try to work together. I mean, it’s a little corny, but I think, but I do think it.”
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