[Camerota:] So the Justice Department is suing to block AT&T's $85 billion takeover of Time Warner. That's, of course, the parent company of CNN. The U.S. government claims the deal violates anti- trust laws and would result in higher bills for American families. AT&T vowing to fight back. CNN senior correspondent Brian Stelter joins us with more. Brian, this is what was feared was going to happen, because President Trump doesn't like CNN and now, lo and behold, it's happening.
[Brian Stelter, Cnn Senior Correspondent:] Right. Parent company is Time Warner. The theory here among AT&T and Time Warner executives, including our bosses here at CNN the parent company is Time Warner the theory is that maybe President Trump has somehow interfered, has meddled in the Justice Department, which we know we all know he has complaints about. That perhaps he's gotten involved, and now his administration officials are blocking this deal as some form of retaliation or punishment against this network's coverage of his presidency. So that's a theory, and now it's going to be tested in court. The official line in this 23-page lawsuit is that the deal, as proposed a year ago, would harm consumers. The idea here is that, if AT&T is able to own HBO, and CNN, and TNT, then it's going to be able to jack up prices for all of AT&T's rivals, like Verizon and Comcast. That's the argument in the lawsuit. Now, the counter argument from AT&T is that deals like this have been approved before, that this lawsuit breaks with decades of precedent, and that this seems fishy, that something else must be going on here. Thus, the theory about President Trump. So now, Alisyn, this is before a judge. A judge will be assigned to the case today. This is going to take months to litigate, could go on for years. But at the very least it will go on for months. AT&T executives are said to be confident that they'll prevail in court. But then again, they were also confident that this deal would get approved by the government.
[Cuomo:] Let's talk about the legal issues and what the potential timing could be, because you could see a quicker resolution, then you might be right to suspect here. Let's bring in Jeffrey Toobin, CNN senior legal analyst. It's good to have you always.
[Jeffrey Toobin, Cnn Chief Legal Analyst:] Yes, sir.
[Cuomo:] And just a little bit of suggestion of the state of play here.
[Toobin:] OK.
[Cuomo:] The man that the Trump administration nominated at the DOJ, their man, has talked about this deal before. Here is what Mr. Delrahim has said. Oh, we don't have it yet. When we have it, I'll give it to you. I promise.
[Camerota:] It's good.
[Stelter:] I can tell you what he said. He said, "This isn't going to be a major anti-trust problem." That's what he said before he was in there.
[Cuomo:] Before he was in there. OK. Now we we know that the president himself has been against this. The lawsuit echoes what they are now saying. Well, this isn't a straight vertical merger. A vertical merger means that the companies are in the same supply chain. There's no real reason to see this as a combination effect that would create a monopoly.
[Toobin:] They're not AT&T and CNN are not competitors.
[Cuomo:] Right. But the DOJ says they're kind of that way. It's kind of a melding. They own Direct TV. It will increase different pricing for people. This merger would greatly harm American consumers. It would mean higher monthly television bills and fewer of the new, emerging innovative options that consumers are beginning to enjoy. Is that a specious premise or do you think it has merit with the court?
[Toobin:] Well, it certainly is not a premise or an argument that the courts have accepted so far. I mean, certainly, the closest analogy to the AT&T-CNN merger was Comcast...
[Cuomo:] Comcast.
[Toobin:] ... merger of NBC Universal, which went through with relative ease during the Obama administration, which was even tougher on mergers than Republican administrations have tended to be. So if this merger is stopped, it would seem that the courts would be taking a different view than they have historically. But under current law, it does seem like this is a merger that that should be approved.
[Cuomo:] Well, also, just as another suggestion, the DOJ has reached out to states' attorneys general to try to get them to join the suit, make this give it some substance. I think they're 0 for 18 at this point in terms of reaching out. Nobody has joined.
[Toobin:] Nobody has joined. I don't know I don't know how many they've asked.
[Cuomo:] That's the reported numbers that they've gone out.
[Stelter:] And one of the state attorney general officials I spoke to said, "We were actually concerned that, maybe because this would be political, we don't want anything to do with it." So that cloud of suspicion about the Trump administration is affecting those state-wide decisions. At the same time, there's not evidence for this Trump idea. There's only circumstantial sort of theory out there.
[Camerota:] Yes.
[Stelter:] Because of all the president's tweets.
[Toobin:] I would I would call it more than circumstantial evidence when you have candidate Trump saying on the on the stump...
[Cuomo:] You're saying direct evidence?
[Toobin:] That is direct evidence.
[Camerota:] OK, let me let me submit Exhibit A of what you called direct evidence. Listen to some of these things.
[Trump:] AT&T is buying Time Warner and, thus, CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration, because it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. And we'll look at breaking that deal up and other deals like that. This should never, ever have been approved in the first place.
[Cuomo:] His eyes were glued to the prompter on that, which means that maybe this is something...
[Camerota:] They're his words.
[Cuomo:] ... someone said to him. I'm saying...
[Stelter:] I always thought it was a Steve Bannon idea, to be honest.
[Cuomo:] There you go.
[Stelter:] Bannon is against media consolidation. He would view a deal like this as a bad thing.
[Camerota:] OK. Well, it's taken root. Now it's happening. He is challenging it. He is trying to block it going through.
[Toobin:] And, you know, now it's going to be before the courts. And as Brian was saying earlier, this is guaranteed now to be at least months of delay. And you can't once you're in court, you never know how things are going to go. And you certainly don't know the timing. Because once you're in front of a federal judge, you can't tell a federal judge, "Hurry it along. Decide in two weeks." They decide when they're going to decide. Plus, you're guaranteed an appeal to the D.C. circuit, which is one of the slower moving courts of appeals. And then the losing side in the D.C. circuit very may very well ask the Supreme Court to hear it. And then you're into at least a year from today of a resolution, which and, you know, you never know. Once you have a company in play like Time Warner is, once you have, you know, a deal that is not settled, other companies could come in and bid and, you know, the...
[Camerota:] After a year?
[Toobin:] No. I mean while while it's before the courts, you could have another company come in and say, "We're making a higher offer, and let's forget all this and do a different deal."
[Cuomo:] Well, the first two results of the action seem somewhat clear which is, one, AT&T has said, "We're not going to do any major spin- off move," which means "I'm not going to get rid of the Turner part. I'm not going to get rid of the Direct TV part."
[Camerota:] Yes.
[Cuomo:] And, secondly, they've said, "We're going to fight." So they didn't scare AT&T out of the box just with the suit.
[Toobin:] They had a press conference, actually. It was weird to cover a press conference in our own building.
[Camerota:] About our...
[Toobin:] About our company, yes.
[Camerota:] ... company.
[Toobin:] But there was a press conference here yesterday with the head of AT&T. And their lawyer, who they've hired, Dan Petrocelli, who was the lawyer for the Goldman family in the O.J. Simpson civil suit, because all roads lead to O.J., ultimately.
[Camerota:] Certainly in your life, they do.
[Toobin:] That's right.
[Camerota:] All right. Thank you both very much for explaining all of this. More news to tell you about. Charlie Rose suspended by CBS and PBS, accused by at least eight women of making unwanted sexual advances in a new "Washington Post" report. So we will speak with one of the reporters who broke this story next.
[Cuomo:] Bloomberg.