Appearing on MSNBC's All In With Chris Hayes Wednesday to promote his new book, the Fox News tome Network of Lies, former CNN and New York Times media business reporter Brian Stelter said “there is a significant amount of evidence” that former president Donald Trump worked “behind the scenes” to “punish AT&T for owning CNN.”
You can see Stelter’s appearance here:
In October 2016, just prior to Trump's election victory over Hillary Clinton, AT&T announced an $85 billion deal to acquire CNN parent company Time Warner Inc. The telecom was subsequently tied up in court for several years by Trump’s Department of Justice, trying to get the deal approved. This was despite AT&T offering the Trump administration strong support for policy goals including the big 2017 corporate tax break.
“Before Election Day 2016, Donald Trump said on the campaign trail that he would try to stop the deal from happening,” Stelter told Hayes. “And then, once the deal was progressing through the process, the Trump DOJ tried to block it … went to federal court. There was a giant lawsuit, [which] delayed the deal by more than a year. AT&T stood up to the president, stood up to the DOJ. They won in court, and the merger happened. But at great cost. It delayed AT&T’s battle against Netflix in the Streaming Wars.”
Hayes responded by recalling a 2019 article written by Jane Mayer in The New Yorker, which quoted Trump as saying, “I want that deal blocked.”
Stelter confirmed Mayer’s report, adding that Trump at the time subsequently called Fox chief Rupert Murdoch and convinced him to approach then AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson about buying CNN.
“He says, ’Hey, want to get CNN off your back?’ which I interpreted at the time was a favor to Trump to try to take CNN and put it into cozy Trump hands,” Stelter said.
The allegations of Trump plying fascist control of the free press with regard to CNN came as the indicted former president, seeking reelection next year, took to his preferred social media platform, to — once again — threaten Comcast for its ownership of MSNBC.
Also read: Trump Threatens To Investigate Comcast for ‘Treason’ If Reelected
“Brian Roberts, its Chairman and CEO, is a slimeball who has been able to get away with these constant attacks for years,” Trump said in a Wednesday Truth Social post. “It is the world’s biggest political contribution to the Radical Left Democrats who, by the way, are destroying our Country. Our so-called ‘government’ should come down hard on them and make them pay for their illegal political activity.”
Noting that Trump “misunderstands the difference between broadcast and cable,” Hayes urged viewers to take the former president's threats seriously.
“These attacks are not new territory for Trump," Hayes said "It’s easy to get bored with his whining. I certainly am. But he’s telling you what he wants to do. It’s a man who wants to take power back telling you what his policy on news organizations he doesn’t like is. He is very clear with his intent: ‘Our so called government should come down on them hard and make them pay for their illegal political activity.'”
While the AT&T-Time Warner merger ultimately went through, Stelter warned that Trump could use promises like these to influence voters and ultimately obstruct democracy.
Noting Turkey's pervasive media censorship as an example, Stelter added, “You can imagine the way Trump could try to turn the screws. It’s not just Comcast … It’s a warning about what he will do if he regains power … That’s why I think it's more notable than when he tried to punish AT&T, or when he was in power and tried to punish Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. He used to Tweet, 'Boycott AT&T’ and nobody would care. The stock would go up that day. This time, it’s a campaign promise to his voters.”
