Are Americans growing weary of the Trump-Russia story?

By Kent R. Kroeger (March 23, 2018)

{Send comments to: kkroeger@nuqum.com}

The signs are starting to appear…

The American people may be growing weary of the Trump-Russia story.

The first sign is what scares media executives the most…TV ratings. It’s the canary-in-the-mine indicator.

MSNBC’s three leading prime time news programs experienced ratings declines between January and February this year. Rachel Maddow lost 159,000 adult viewers, Lawrence O’Donnell dropped 248,000, and Chris Hayes shed 87,000. At the same time, Fox News saw complementary increases across its prime time lineup.

Its just one month and MSNBC’s weekday evening schedule still garners more viewers than a year ago. But trends start somewhere.

The second sign of Russia-fatigue is the recent sustained increase in Donald Trump’s job approval ratings. As of March 23rd, the RealClearPolitics.com average was at 41.6 percent.

He’s not exactly popular. In fact, he remains historically unpopular for this stage in a presidency. Yet, for Trump, 41.6…