Trump's shortsighted war on CNN

How his hatred for the news network could backfire on him in 2020

President Trump.
(Image credit: Illustrated | blocberry/iStock, Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, IconicBestiary/iStock, Miodrag Kitanovic/iStock, Wikimedia Commons)

It's no secret President Trump has no love for CNN. The president regularly lambasts the network as "fake news" and even shared a meme of a CNN reporter being hit by a Trump train. His supporters, for their part, seem to sympathize with Trump's hatred for CNN and other mainstream networks, heckling reporters at Trump events. But Trump's blind hatred for CNN may have an unintended consequence: It could cost him vital working-class support in the 2020 election.

Hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer's company, Elliott Management, last month announced it had acquired a $3.2 billion stake in AT&T. Trump heralded the announcement as "great news," and it's not hard to figure out why: CNN is owned by Warner Media, which is a subsidiary of AT&T. Trump hopes Singer, a longtime GOP mega-donor, will pressure Warner Media to "put a stop to all the Fake News" produced on CNN.

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Ryan Girdusky

Ryan Girdusky is a writer based out of New York.