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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTrump Covering Up Scheme to Use Justice Department to Punish CNN
By Jonathan Chait
President Trump has made two major attempts (so far) to use his power to intimidate and control independent media. The second attempt was his intervention to deny Amazon a $10 billion Pentagon contract as retribution against the Washington Post. The first was ordering the Justice Department to block an AT&T merger, in order to punish CNN. And while the courts ultimately stymied the latter move, Trump is attempting to keep up public pressure on AT&T and its ownership of CNN, tweeting last night:
Link to tweet
Trumps tweet attempts to connect CNNs alleged lack of credibility, which is Trumps way of saying that its message is not controlled by his loyalists, to its alleged bad ratings (which is not in fact correct) and thereby to AT&Ts management. The whole message would be totally inscrutable were it not for the extraordinarily damning scandal that is the predicate for his thuggish warning.
CNN is a subject of Trumps obsessive anger. During the campaign, he publicly opposed its merger, a position that pointedly contrasted with his general indifference to antitrust issues and corporate consolidation. In the summer of 2017, a New York Times report on Trumps hatred for CNN included a pointed threat: White House advisers have discussed a potential point of leverage over their adversary, a senior administration official said: a pending merger between CNNs parent company, Time Warner, and AT&T.
Last year, Jane Mayer reported that Trump attempted to carry out this very threat. The president called Gary Cohn, director of his National Economic Council, and ordered him to block the merger. After the meeting, Cohn told thenChief of Staff John Kelly he wouldnt follow the order. However, later that year, the Justice Department did block the merger, though it lost in court.
snip
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/01/trump-cnn-merger-time-warner-at-and-t-media-scandal-impeachment.html
underpants
(182,957 posts)Nope. No reports to read or meetings to go to. Just laying around all day and visions of deceit and conspiracies dance in his head.
DanieRains
(4,619 posts)It appears.
And that's why the deplorables love him!
bucolic_frolic
(43,376 posts)Some say Trump's USPS postal commission appointments raised prices aggressively to impact Amazon's shipping costs. Others think USPS is just padding its balance sheet so it fetches higher bids and is worth more when liquidated.
getagrip_already
(14,906 posts)Amazon will be in the cat bird seat to compete with it.
Amazon logistics trucks already prowl urban and suburban streets. It wouldnt be a big stretch to add priority mail delivery.
Trump could hand them a major win.
BigmanPigman
(51,643 posts)to frame the Bidens. If he did end up doing that than CNN would not be credible.
Perseus
(4,341 posts)An idiot with a title that he knows is way too big for him, all he does is stuff that kids who have limited intelligence would do, like tweeting stuff against people or companies they don't like.
This guy doesn't have time to think how to govern, I am thankful for that, but his lack of intelligence, self-respect is amazing. The fact that he thinks "he is cool" when tweeting the way he does is an embarrassment and should be an embarrassment to him and his family. What a degenerate fool he is.
muriel_volestrangler
(101,391 posts)At the very least, it keeps his base in their state of paranoia, and trusting Fox News etc. It also rewards "the Gateway Pundit" by mentioning him to that base. If it does anything to make CNN management think they have to spend time making sure AT&T isn't paying any attention to Trump (and the trouble with big business is you can never totally trust a senior manager not to throw their lot in with a powerful fuckface like Trump), then that help him too.
Trump needs every one of his potential voters to despise most of the media. This is a central part of his re-election strategy.