AT&T is cutting jobs, but Trump is focused on its management of CNN instead

AT&T is cutting jobs, but Trump is focused on its management of CNN instead
President Trump appears to be fine with AT&T slashing jobs.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/2/21046768/att-layoffs-2020-jobs-outsourcing-cnn-trump-twitter

President Donald Trump is very mad about AT&T over CNN. The thousands of jobs it’s cutting, not so much.

The telecommunications giant, which acquired CNN through its $85 billion merger with Time Warner in 2018, has generated scrutiny among the press, organizers, and activists over job cuts it has made over the past several months. Most recently, Axios reported that thousands of AT&T workers were about to lose their posts after training foreigners in line to replace them this year. Trump has positioned himself as a job creator and a crusader against outsourcing, but when it comes to AT&T, he’s not saying anything — well, at least not about jobs. His focus is on his ongoing annoyance with CNN.

On Wednesday, three days after the Axios report, Trump took to Twitter to take a swipe at CNN after a supposed “ratings dive” and suggested parent-company AT&T “should make changes.” It’s not clear what specific changes he would want.


Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Can’t believe @ATT keeps the management after yet another @CNN ratings dive. Nobody watching, NO CREDIBILITY! Maybe they should make changes at AT&T?


This is hardly the first time Trump has called for AT&T to do something about CNN — which presumably translates to shifting to coverage that’s more favorable to him. He spoke out against the AT&T-Time Warner merger from the get-go, and while there were plenty of legitimate reasons to oppose the deal — it marked a significant amount of consolidation in the media industry, and multiple lawmakers raised red flags about it — Trump’s animus toward CNN was evidently in play. He has called on AT&T to fire CNN chief Jeff Zucker, and over the summer, the president pushed for people to stop “using or subscribing” to AT&T in order to force changes at the network.