Giuliani Said President Trump Killed AT&T Time Warner Merger, But the White House Says He’s Wrong

In another seeming flareup of his chronic foot-in-mouth disease, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani on May 11 told the Huffington Post that the president “denied the merger” sought by AT&T and Time-Warner. Then, on May 12, the White House told CNN that Giuliani got it wrong, and that the Department of Justice alone blocked the deal. Giuliani was arguing that business relationships of Donald Trump’s longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen did not contradict Trump’s campaign promises to end “pay-to-play” schemes and to “drain the swamp” because Cohen did not get for his newfound clients what they wanted. "The president denied the merger. They didn’t get the result they wanted,” Giuliani said. White House spokesperson Sarah Sanders told CNN that Giuliani got Trump’s role in the decision wrong, saying “the Department of Justice denied the deal.” The DOJ’s antitrust chief, Makan Delrahim, has sworn under oath that there was no political influence on his decision to block the deal — even though he has reversed his position publicly.