Trump calls for boycott of AT&T over CNN outrage
President Trump on Monday called on Americans to boycott AT&T to force the media giant to overhaul CNN, a news organization that has faced near-constant criticism from the White House.
The latest and unprecedented jab came as Trump flew to London for an official state visit and was forced to watch the channel because it is ‘the primary source of news available from the U.S.”
“After watching it for a short while, I turned it off. All negative & so much Fake News, very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop. Why doesn’t owner @ATT do something?” he posted on Twitter.
An AT&T spokesperson did not immediately respond to request for comment. The company acquired CNN as part of its $85 billion purchase of Time Warner assets.
The fresh ire comes after Trump expressed outrage on Sunday over CNN’s reporting of comments he made to British tabloid The Sun, in which Trump referred to Meghan Markle as “nasty” for disparaging remarks she gave prior to his election.
“I didn’t know that. What can I say? I didn’t know that she was nasty," he told the outlet. Trump later said his comments were taken out of context.
In 2016, Markle called Trump "divisive" and threatened to move to Canada if he won the election.
"Think about female voters alone, right? I think it was in 2012 the Republican Party lost the female vote by 12 points; that is a huge number and with as misogynistic as Trump is, and so vocal about it, that is a huge chunk of it,” the now Duchess of Sussex told “The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore."
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| T | AT&T INC. | 19.13 | +0.38 | +2.00% |
The drama is déjà vu for Trump, who caused controversy during a prior visit to the U.K. when he slammed now-outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May in an interview with The Sun, comments Trump later called fake news despite the existence of a recording of the discussion.
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During the most recent interview with the outlet, Trump said May could “have built up a big advantage” during Brexit negotiations if she had followed his advice, and broke with precedent in throwing his support behind British politician Boris Johnson as the country’s next prime minister.
The Sun is a unit of News UK, which is owned by News Corp., the media empire controlled by Rupert Murdoch, who also controls Fox, the parent of FOX Business and Fox News.
