White House Could Use AT&T/Time Warner Deal As 'Leverage' Against CNN (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from a report via Ars Technica: AT&T seems to be on track to close its purchase of Time Warner Inc., but President Donald Trump's hatred of Time Warner property CNN could still be a "wild card" in the deal. Trump's feud with CNN was described yesterday in a New York Times article titled "The Network Against the Leader of the Free World." Within that article is one tidbit that could affect AT&T's proposed $85.4 billion purchase of Time Warner, which owns CNN and other media properties such as HBO and Turner Broadcasting System: "White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNN's parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T. Mr. Trump's Justice Department will decide whether to approve the merger, and while analysts say there is little to stop the deal from moving forward, the president's animus toward CNN remains a wild card."

Separately, The Daily Caller wrote today that Trump doesn't want the merger to be approved unless CNN President Jeff Zucker is fired. The conservative news website attributed the information to "a source familiar with President Trump's thinking." Zucker told the New York Times that the pending merger has not affected his journalistic or management decisions.

Comments

Re: Abuse of Power

[ud0]

Has any former President ever been so open in his abuse of power?

The President? It's CNN that is blackmailing people they disagree with.

This is a fallacy. Being (ethically) corrupt isn't a zero-sum pool. They can both be horrible at the same time. It's still an abuse of power even if you're doing it to someone reprehensible. Also: criticizing one for their actions is not an implicit endorsement of the other party.

Re:s/Trump/Obama/g

[swillden]

FYI: You're living in a reality distortion field. You should turn that off.

Obama didn't fire Wagoneer, he asked him to resign and Wagoneer agreed. And the motivation for the request was GM's request for a multi-billion dollar bailout; the resignation wasn't a condition of receiving the bailout, but IMO it would have been perfectly reasonable if it were. If a CEO has to beg the government to save his company, he's clearly failed.

What was your dipshit Obama suckup point again?

Sigh. This is the sad state of what passes for political discussion in the US. One can't state facts that show one side in a bad light without being accused of being partisan for the other side. I didn't care for Obama and I'm glad he's not the the White House any more. That said, I'd gladly trade Trump for just about anybody, Obama included.