On the set of “Morning Joe” Thursday, the regulars dug into reports that the Department of Justice might attempt to block a merger between AT&T and Time Warner unless the latter sold off CNN.
The show opened up the segment with footage of Trump’s own words when he was a candidate saying he would not allow the the merger to go through if he became president.
That provoked some choice mockery from Scarborough.
“I’m sorry, you know, there are so many times, and even Kellyanne Conway’s husband at one point basically said, ‘Mr. President, you need to just shut up because you are hurting yourself in your legal cases,’” said host Joe Scarborough.
“He did that, his tweets, his words have been used time and time against him rightly in courts by judges to strike down decisions that actually would have gone [to] his benefit.”
Scarborough said that Trump’s known “obsession with CNN” would be a red flag for any judge if the Department of Justice move were ever challenged in court.
“That clip could be used by any attorney, by AT&T, to say, ‘Hey, look, you can see what was in his mind even before he was president of the United States, even before he knew what the merger looked look. He said he wouldn’t approve it and brought up CNN, brought up CNN, his obsession with CNN,” said Scarborough.
“I can’t think of a single judge in America that wouldn’t say, ‘Justice Department can’t reject this because of CNN.’ Again, Donald Trump puts the burden on himself.”
The legal analysis may ultimately be a prescient as news emerged yesterday that AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson has “no intention” of acceding to any DOJ demands as part of the merger.