As Trump threatens AT&T, cellular companies fight for government goodwill

President Trump fired off the latest salvo in his ongoing war against CNN Monday morning from London, bemoaning the news outlet’s prominence abroad and suggesting that a boycott of parent company AT&T would force the network’s coverage of his administration to improve. Trump’s tweets represent his latest attack on the news outlet and the mainstream media at large, which he has dubbed “fake news”. They also expose a different struggle quietly raging in the nation’s capital since 2016. As telecommunications companies such as AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint battle to curry favor with the Trump administration, personal loyalties and vendettas intertwine with millions of lobbying dollars to fundamentally shake up the industry.