Hollywood Breakdown
How a Trump presidency might affect the AT&T Time Warner merger
Now that Donald Trump is angry with CNN, is it possible that as president he could try to block the giant merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which is CNN's parent company?
By Matthew Belloni • • 3m ListenAt his press conference yesterday, Donald Trump made it clear he was not happy with CNN for publishing a story about possible compromising information Russia may have on him. He got into a shouting match with CNN reporter Jim Acosta and tweeted the next day that CNN was "fake news." Since the parent company of CNN is Time Warner, it's possible that as President, Trump could have an influence in blocking the proposed merger with AT&T. CNN is not a huge part of the Time Warner portfolio, but Trump has made it clear that he is not against punishing press outlets that have not been favorable to him. Today, Trump met with AT&T chief Randall Stephenson, though an AT&T spokesman said the Time Warner deal was not discussed in their meeting.
