Trump claims CNN 'is bad for the USA' as he praises new AT&T investor

[yaesu]

Source: USA today

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump praised Monday a new AT&T investor, which owns the company that CNN is under, saying that hopefully the new shareholder will "put a stop to all of the Fake News."

Elliott Management, a top activist shareholder firm, announced Monday that it has a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T. WarnerMedia, which owns CNN, is under AT&T.

"Great news that an activist investor is now involved with AT&T. As the owner of VERY LOW RATINGS @CNN, perhaps they will now put a stop to all of the Fake News emanating from its non-credible 'anchors,'" Trump claimed in a tweet. "Also, I hear that, because of its bad ratings, it is losing a fortune."

"But most importantly, @CNN is bad for the USA," the president continued in a follow-up tweet. "Their International Division spews bad information & Fake News all over the globe. This is why foreign leaders are always asking me, 'Why does the Media hate the U.S. sooo much?' It is a fraudulent shame, & all comes from the top!"

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/09/09/trump-praises-new-at-t-investor-continues-criticize-cnn/2262803001/

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Line Crossed? Trump Encourages New 'Activist' AT&T Investor to Stop 'Fake News Emanating'

In a pair of -- at best, ethically questionable -- tweets Monday morning, the president raged against CNN, following news of Elliott Management disclosing a $3.2 billion stake in communications giant AT&T, which owns CNN.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

1. I have a small holding in WarnerMedia.

Last edited Mon Sep 9, 2019, 02:20 PM - Edit history (1)

As a shareholder, I, along with all shareholders, can petition the board of directors to disclose the company's political activities. These shareholder proposals usually go nowhere, but this one might gain some traction.

WarnerMedia

Elliott Management Corporation

Website: Elliottmgmt.com

Elliott Management Corporation is an American investment management firm. It is also the largest activist fund in the world.

It serves as the management affiliate of American hedge funds flagship Elliott Associates L.P. and Elliott International Limited. The Elliott Corporation was founded by Paul Singer, who also serves as CEO of the management company, based in New York City. From inception, Elliott has generated for its investors a 14.6% net compound annual return, compared to 10.9% for the S&P 500 stock index, and now has more than US$34 billion in assets under management. As of the first quarter of 2015, Elliott's portfolio is worth over $8 billion. By 2009 "more than one-third of Elliott’s portfolio was concentrated in distressed securities, typically in the debt of bankrupt or near-bankrupt companies." Elliott has widely been described as a vulture fund.

AT&T

In September 2019. Elliott Management released a letter outlining what they call "a compelling value-creation opportunity" at AT&T. The activist investor announces it owns $3.2 billion of AT&T stock and says the company could be worth at least $60 per share.[65][66]
....

[65] "AT&T Stock Soars After Activist Elliott Pushes For Breakup".
[65] "AT&T shares jump after activist Elliott Management takes $3.2 billion stake".

[Brainfodder]

2. Dear Reporters, Just say whatabout Fox News Mr. President?

So corrupt, it's not worth further comment.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Is infrastructure even being addressed under this whatever?

[SWBTATTReg]

3. AT&T is worth a lot more than the stock price indicates. Existing management has run it...

into the ground by constantly buying up crap and expanding the corporation's reach, but not much more than that, e.g., the stock price is still stuck at it's 2008 price roughly. And they kept buying crap. If I were in active management of AT&T (fair disclosure, I was in management for 30 years +-). It's been very disappointing for tons of former AT&T workers / retirees / etc.

And by the way, one guy / one company buying 3.2 billion dollars worth of stock? This is nothing. Especially for a 200 billion dollar company (last I have heard)...

I got rid of my stock way back in 2008 +- timeframe. I got tired of the stock just sitting there and literally doing nothing but going down in price constantly. Really disappointing.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

4. Give it up, Trump. CNN will outlast you.

Opinions
Give it up, Trump. CNN will outlast you.

By Erik Wemple, Media critic
September 9 at 3:12 PM

Some Trump-CNN watershed moments:
....

Now the president is adding a fresh bullet point:

{snip}

The tweets reference a news story that surfaced Monday morning, regarding the move by activist hedge fund Elliott Management to secure a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T. The objective, stated the activist outfit, was to boost AT&’s stock price with improved “strategic focus” and other principles of good business. Does that mean selling off Time Warner and CNN? “While it is too soon to tell whether AT&T can create value with Time Warner, we remain cautious on the benefits of this combination. AT&T has yet to articulate a clear strategic rationale for why AT&T needs to own Time Warner,” reads a letter from Elliott Management.

As New York Times reporter Ken Vogel pointed out on Twitter, Elliott Management isn’t just some faceless finance outfit:

IMPORTANT NOTE: The "activist investor" in question here is GOP mega-donor PAUL SINGER, who donated $1M to TRUMP's inauguration, & has met with the president multiple times since.

* A Singer-backed group previously funded the Fusion GPS research that became the Russia dossier.

Link to tweet

As CNN’s own report on the Elliott stake points out, this power move gives the company just a bit more than a 1 percent stake in AT&T, ranking it as the sixth-largest institutional owner. It would have to rally other stakeholders to force a restructuring of the company’s assets. A company spokesman spoke up:

In case you hear differently, CNN is having its most profitable year in history. Last month the network delivered its highest August ratings on record and won the prime time demo - beating both Fox and MSNBC. 🤦🏻?♂️

Link to tweet

In other news, CNN reported Monday morning that the United States in 2017 extracted from Russia a top covert source in the Russian government. Key detail: “A person directly involved in the discussions said that the removal of the Russian was driven, in part, by concerns that President Donald Trump and his administration repeatedly mishandled classified intelligence and could contribute to exposing the covert source as a spy.”
....

Erik Wemple, The Washington Post's media critic, focuses on the cable-news industry. Before joining The Post, he ran a short-lived and much publicized local online news operation, and for eight years served as editor of Washington City Paper. Follow https://twitter.com/ErikWemple

[displacedtexan]

5. Another day, another Trump crime.

Enough said.

[EgullIsCU]

6. Too bad

CNN was not around to challenge Hitler. Perhaps then Hitler would never have gained power and the "Twitter Critter" in the White House could bever have used this monster as a role model and would never had access to a Hitler playbook.

[backtoblue]

7. Wasn't there some conflict with at&t before?

Seems like it was a merger or something...maybe a Kushner thing? I can't remember.

Too much corruption to keep up with.

[backtoblue]

8. I think it was Michael Cohen who got money from AT &T

600,000....

MAY 11, 2018
AT&T Gave Trump’s Lawyer $600,000 to Help Get Its Merger Approved (and Its Taxes Cut)

But it is, of course, an ethical monstrosity. The Trump team’s handling of the AT&T-Time Warner merger looked fundamentally corrupt, even before these revelations. Last July, a senior White House official told the New York Times that administration advisers had discussed using Time Warner’s desired merger as a “point of leverage” over CNN (its subsidiary), in an attempt to coerce the news network into giving Trump more positive coverage. Before that, presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner had (reportedly) complained to Time Warner executive Gary Ginsberg about CNN’s “unfair coverage” of the president.

These actions cast a cloud of impropriety over the Justice Department’s subsequent decision to block the merger, which would have otherwise been quite defensible. Now, it appears that Trump’s inner circle not only tried to use the pending merger as a tool for extracting more favorable coverage from CNN — but also, at least in Cohen’s case, as one for extracting hundreds of thousands of dollars from AT&T. If any of that money did get back to the president —or else, to someone that Trump had an interest in shutting up — it might well represent the slimiest pay-to-play scandal in the history of the American presidency.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2018/05/at-and-t-paid-trumps-lawyer-to-get-its-merger-approved.html

[mahina]

9. As if he gives a rat's ass about what is good for the USA.