With US stocks already struggling through their worst trading day of November on what many believed would be a quiet Veterans’ Day, shares of Comcast briefly plunged Monday afternoon after President Trump tweeted a quote from Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino criticizing the giant cable conglomerate (which also happens to own NBC News and MSNBC, possibly Trump’s second-least favorite cable news organization) for purported anti-Trust violations. “These guys are acting much worse, and have much more potential for damage to consumers, than anything AT&T-Time Warner would do,” Trump tweeted.
American Cable Association has big problems with Comcast. They say that Comcast routinely violates Antitrust Laws. “These guys are acting much worse, and have much more potential for damage to consumers, than anything AT&T-Time Warner would do.” Charlie Gasparino
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 12, 2018
Comcast slid to session lows after the tweet; they were down 2% on the day…
…though shares quickly rebounded, erasing most of the drop.
Notably, Trump’s attack on Comcast comes as Democrats are gearing up to investigate his efforts to “punish” critical media organizations. That probe will focus on Trump’s suspected involvement in pushing the DOJ to try and stop the merger of Time Warner (which owns CNN) and AT&T, as well as his attempts to push the Postmaster General to raise rates on Amazon, whose CEO and founder, Jeff Bezos, owns the Washington Post. With nothing on Trump’s schedule on Monday, expect more disruptive tweets ahead.
