President Donald Trump took aim at CNN and MSNBC on Monday morning as word surfaced that an activist investor was lobbying for major changes at CNN parent AT&T.
Trump responded to reports Monday that Elliott Management had laid out a four-point plan to boost the share price of AT&T with divestitures and other changes. Trump returned to his familiar refrain of accusing CNN of disseminating “fake news” and asserting falsely that the news operation is “losing a fortune.”
In fact, CNN has been a steady profit generator for AT&T and its previous parent company, Time Warner. A CNN spokesman via Twitter that the company is having “the most profitable year in its history.”
Trump also called CNN “bad for the USA,” and he declared that “as bad as CNN, Comcast MSNBC is worse.”
Trump has a history of fighting with CNN and AT&T. Trump’s animus toward CNN was widely seen as a factor in the Justice Department’s decision to sue to block AT&T’s takeover of Time Warner on anti-trust grounds. AT&T won a decisive victory in Washington, D.C. federal court in 2018 that was upheld earlier this year on appeal.
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