Trump tried to get AT&T to sell CNN to Rupert Murdoch, book reveals

[highplainsdem]

Source: The Independent

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”).

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

[sakabatou]

1. Trump was on such a power trip. Is still on it, I'm sure.

[ananda]

2. CNN has their own Murdoch now.

They've gone to the dark side.

[maxsolomon]

3. We were THIS CLOSE to being a post-Democracy.

(Re)electing him in '24 would be a world-historical error, and I'm not sure Americans are smart enough to not make it.

[Kid Berwyn]

4. Fascist much?

“‘Don’t you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.’” — 1984

[Initech]

5. Oh dear god, the last thing we need is a Murdoch monopoly!

[keep_left]

6. He's already close to that already. Between Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, numerous...

...foreign papers, and a publishing empire (HarperCollins and various imprints like the ill-fated ReganBooks), his fiefdom should have been broken up under antitrust laws long ago.

[Mawspam2]

7. Doesn't much matter. ALL corporate media...

...is in it for the clicks and money. Country, morals be damned. Dark Brandon had it right in his speech the other day. Whether its FB, FOX. CNN, NYT, WP, or any other outlet, it all comes down to the money and clicks.

[R Merm]

8. Another one knowing what was going on and waiting to publish their book to tell us.

The journalists are just as bad as the tRump White House staff on this.

[wildman76]

9. Omg I big conspiracy to throw about liberal media