brian, you are getting a new response from time warner, our parent company. what can you tell us? this is the strongest long about the political questions that jeffrey tubeoobin was rais. this is a statement. he said, the court s resdeound rejection of the government s arguments is a confirmation. this was all about president trump and his disdain for cnn and his desire to kill this deal. the white house and the doj have always denied that. president trump said he did not get involved. those questions are going to linger even after at&t takes control of time warner, which is likely to happen by this time next week as long as there s not a stay in the case. there are political questions and there rlt busineare busines
questions. we will see other mergers. we will see comcast and others making moves. this was a big thumbs up for the american business world. it s interesting, jeffrey, the judgef the u.s. district court here in the district of columbia suggested that this whole process took a lot of time and he said, the whole also cost a lot of money. tens of millions of dollars, not just in legal fees that were imposed on at&t and time warner but effort expected by the department of justice. i need to emphasize how unusual it was not only for the judge to reje the government s position but to say, don t even try to get a stay. i m not giving you a stay. you can try from the court of appeals, but a stay would have the effect of killing the deal, because the deal has an expiration date of june 21st. he was really saying, not only was this a bad and meritless
shelter, our senior media correspondent and jeffrey toobin. a scathing decision by this federal judge, jeffrey, not only ruling in favor of the merger but also warning the government, don t think about a stay or an appeal. you know, this was such a fiasco for the justice departme it raises the question of why this lawsuit was brought in the first place. conservatives, republicans generally done believe in stopping mergers. the only thing we know about the origin of this case is that caidate trump and donald trump denounced this merger in advance and also indicated, as we have heard many times, thate hates cnn and, thus, really raises the question of whether this case was a vendetta ordered by the white house against cnn s parent coany. the judge in the case did not allow evidence on that question. journalists certainly have the opportunity to ask that question. the issue of why this case was brought remains very much alive.