Behind the scenes in the West Wing, President Trump continues to rant and brood about former FBI Director Jim Comey and the Russia investigation that got him fired.
Trump tells aides and visitors that the probe now being run by special counsel Bob Mueller is a witch hunt, and that Comey was a leaker.
So White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders was reflecting her boss's moods when she attacked Comey at length from the podium yesterday, after being asked about Steve Bannon's assertion to "60 Minutes" that the firing was one of the worst mistakes in modern political history:
Why it matters: The Mueller investigation is hitting ever closer to home for Trump, and he's using the tools of his office to try to undermine the special counsel's future findings.
Be smart: Trump allies plan to vilify Mueller the way the Clinton White House treated Ken Starr.
Time Warner CEO blasts anti-trust case — Trade war spooking U.S. businesses — Puerto Rico blackout — Pence's Art of the Deal
Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes said in testimony Wednesday that the government is "ridiculous" to argue a combined Time Warner/AT&T would seek to hurt AT&T’s cable and satellite competitors by denying them Time Warner content.
Why it matters: The heart of the Department of Justice’s argument in suing to block the proposed $85 billion merger for suing to block the merger is that vertically integrating AT&T (a content distributor) and Time Warner (a content creator) would give Time Warner incentive to withhold its content from AT&T’s competitors — or to jack up the price.
Bewkes says doing this would be “catastrophic” for his business, because denying distributors access to its content —Time Warner cable channels like CNN, TNT, and TBS, as well as the premium subscription channel, HBO — would also harm Time Warner's advertising revenue, subscription income, and overall viewership.
“We try to keep all channels,” Bewkes said.
Bewkes also said he disagreed with the DOJ’s case that the merged company would also be incentivized to pull HBO from other pay TV companies so that they couldn’t use it to market their “virtual MVPDs” or digital skinny bundle packages.
Dan Petrocelli, the lawyer for AT&T and Time Warner, kept coming back to the defense’s flagship argument that the merger is necessary for Time Warner and AT&T to compete with data-driven ad businesses, like Google and Facebook.
Our thought bubble: The DOJ needs to prove that the proposed merger could be harmful to consumers, and that will require hard evidence of a negative effect on consumers, like rising cable subscription fees.
On the other hand, AT&T and Time Warner's argument that a merger will help them compete with tech companies for ad dollars — whatever truth it may hold — doesn't say much about the impact on consumers, either.
