Trump tried to get AT&T to sell CNN to Rupert Murdoch, just after his 2016 election victory

[highplainsdem]

Link to tweet

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/trump-cnn-murdoch-the-divider-b2168898.html

Former president Donald Trump and his aides pushed for AT&T to sell CNN to Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch as the then-president was pushing to block the telecommunications company’s merger with Time Warner in the early days of his presidency.

According to a pre-release copy of authors Peter Baker and Susan Glasser’s book The Divider which The Independent obtained ahead of its’ 20 September publication date, Mr Murdoch twice offered to buy CNN as a way to smooth the way for the merger by taking over an independent news outlet which Mr Trump viewed as an enemy.

The authors report how Mr Trump summoned AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson to his Trump Tower office just after his 2016 election victory and complained about then-CNN boss Jeff Zucker, calling him “a bad guy” while also bragging that he’d “got” Mr Zucker his position.

Mr Stephenson reportedly left the meeting believing Mr Trump was a threat to the merger, and in the subsequent weeks AT&T would donate to the Trump inauguration fund and hire Mr Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen as an adviser (the latter of which Mr Stephenson later called “a big mistake”).

-snip-

[sakabatou]

1. Smells like something illegal

[SWBTATTReg]

2. Trying to please tRUMP. Stephenson made a big a&& mistake when he donated to trump's fund

hired Cohen. Idiot should have never responded to tRUMP's phone call in his blatant interference between ATT/CNN Murdoch/Time Warner interference.