I’m with Josh on this one. Lots of reasons to block this merger, but the one that’s really driving this–Trump’s antipathy to CNN–is completely improper.
Politicizing the DOJ to chill a news organization’s First Amendment rights in opposition to tradition, simple justice and the god-damn Constitution and rule of law. This is America, you traitorous fuck. This is America, not some mid-sized contractor you can stiff out of its pay. The opposition you’ve already seen is a mother’s forehead kiss compared to what’s coming.
Completely inappropriate. But how to stop it?
I don’t like mega mergers in any event. Especially mergers involving media giants. There is far too much media concentration as it is. That said I doubt this lawsuit is based on solid antitrust principles. Trump is trying to stop CNN criticism. He will probably be successful.
Jesus, talk about “right thing for the wrong reason.” Things don’t get much righter and reasons much wronger than this.
I wish Comcast would merge with shingles, explosive diarrhea, and scabies.
Mergers are mostly useful for the private equity break up later, after the marriage fails.
This may be a situation of “let’s you and him fight it out”. Doubtless AT&T has plenty of high-paid lawyers, and they won’t be lacking for proof this is driven by Donnie’s narcissism. A better outlet for progressives is to craft new anti-trust legislation and metrics that track deleterious consolidation beyond market share.
If they do the same with the Sinclair merger, I’ll take this seriously.
Trump: CNN must go under or be run by Putin.
Their using the DOJ to stop the deal b/c At&T wont sell CNN and more importantly get rid of Jeff Zucker…
Trump’s anger at CNN burn even One reason Trump may have expected friendlier coverage from CNN is Jeff Zucker, the network president, who led NBC Universal during Trump’s run on “The Apprentice.”
Trump expects his personal relationships with media figures to produce positive coverage. That’s how it works with David Pecker at the National Enquirer, and Trump seems not to understand why things do not work the same way with Brzezinski and Scarborough or with Zucker. Recall that Trump even boycotted Fox News briefly during the Republican primary because he thought the network owned by his pal Rupert Murdoch was not being kind enough to him.
The president values loyalty at a premium. The way he sees it, Zucker has been tremendously disloyal, which makes hotter.
I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, AT&Ts merger with Time Warner would actually be a pretty bad thing since there are too many monopolies in telecommunications to begin with. On the other hand, this is a very blatant abuse of the DOJ by Trump. It’s really a case of the right thing happening for all the wrong reasons. Oh well.
Even if there are legitimate concerns at the DOJ about this merger it certainly doesn’t help that Trump uses his position to bash everyone from citizens, to celebrities, to athletes, to corporations. His complete lack of restraint puts a taint on everything. It’s a big part of his rolling failure.
Ain’t that the truth Dave.
Ah, Comcast. A company so thoroughly, unapologetically awful, so wretched in its service, so larcenous in its billing and product delivery and design practices, so intentionally incompetent in its technical and billing support, it makes people thankful for having Time-Warner.
If it didn’t exist, Time-Warner would have had to invent it just to make itself look good.
Then again, it’s notable how Time-Warner keeps trying to merge with unapolegetically awful companies with wretched service, larcenous billing and product delivery and design practices and technical and billing support that are incompetent by design. Because that’s also a perfect description of AT&T.
Jeff Zucker was overheard fuming, “Billions of dollars in free advertising airing that orange numbnuts insane Hitleresque campaign rallies, and this is the fucking thanks we get?”
Ditto Verizon.
So now the DOJ is harassing AT&T and Time Warner in Court to stifle CNN? We have truly become a 3rd world banana republic if the DOJ somehow wins. (Any half way decent antitrust lawyer knows vertical mergers like this one always get approved).
AT&T has superb lawyers. Moreover, AT&T will use discovery to their advantage since the DOJ only opposes this merger to stifle CNN.