Trump Suggests AT&T Boycott to Force Change at ‘Unfair’ CNN

(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump, newly arrived for a state visit to the U.K., criticized CNN in a pair of tweets as “very bad for U.S.” and suggested a boycott of owner AT&T Inc. could force changes at the news network.

The comments were the latest of many presidential broadsides directed at news organizations that have displeased Trump with their coverage, and at CNN in particular. The Justice Department earlier this year lost an appeal in its effort to derail AT&T’s acquisition of Time Warner Inc., which brought CNN under the telecom giant’s purview.

Soon after landing at Stansted Airport outside London on Monday, Trump tweeted that he had “just arrived in the United Kingdom. The only problem is that @CNN is the primary source of news available from the U.S.”

He said he turned the network off after watching it for a short while. “All negative & so much Fake News, very bad for U.S. Big ratings drop. Why doesn’t owner @ATT do something?”

Minutes later, the president added in another tweet that if people stopped “using or subscribing to @ATT, they would be forced to make big changes at @CNN, which is dying in the ratings anyway.”

AT&T declined to comment, but anchors on CNN’s “New Day” program reacted to the tweets. Alysin Camerota said the president was “riveted” by the show and had tweeted about CNN’s “global reach,” and co-anchor John Berman wished Trump a good morning.

To contact the reporter on this story: John J. Edwards III in Geneva at jedwardsiii1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Nick Turner at nturner7@bloomberg.net, Joshua Gallu, Elizabeth Wasserman

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