AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson on Monday said that forfeiting CNN as part of his company’s acquisition of Time Warner, the cable network’s parent company, is off the table. Stephenson said his company would not consider anything else that would look like an abdication of the First Amendment.
“There has been a lot of reporting and speculation whether this is all about CNN,” Stephenson said in a press conference after the Department of Justice filed a complaint to block the merger.
Stephenson said that he doesn’t “know” whether the network, for which President Donald Trump has demonstrated a deep, abiding and vocal enmity, has played any part in the administration’s move to block the acquisition.
“But nobody should be surprised that the question keeps coming up, because we’ve witnessed such an abrupt change in the application of antitrust law here,” he said.
Stephenson said that such a compromise with the Justice Department would be “a nonstarter.”
“The bottom line is that we cannot and we will not be party to any agreement that would even give the perception of compromising the First Amendment protections of the press,” he said. “So any agreement that results in us forfeiting control of CNN, whether directly or indirectly, is a nonstarter.”
Trump should be impeached for trying to force AT&T to sell CNN to Murdoch.
By the way Randall Stephenson is the President of the Boy Scouts, he was probably the one that told Trump that the infamous speech he gave to the Boy Scouts in the summer was the best ever. Just to prove that sucking up doesn’t work long term.
He wants CNN to be sold to Sinclair Broadcast Group, which are just as just as wingnut as Fox, but don’t have a cable news channel.
I am willing to put money that it will happen as AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson is a spineless bootlicker, who will get his 9 digit bonus (which he determined himself ) for the merger regardless of what happens to CNN.
Stephenson is no fool. He is communicating to the judiciary that Don the Con is blocking the AT&T/Time Warner merger out of petty spite at CNN.
Stephenson is far from a spineless boot licker. His statement and that of his general counsel reveal steady confidence the DOJ’s lawsuit will get thrown out.