three months from taking effect, assuming the government and the shareholders all sign off, but assung is dangerous when it comes to the government. the regulatory review process is complicated, it is a big source of stress for the executives. at&t and discovery are determined to get this deal done. it is the top priority. it is frankly all that matters to the management right now. they don t want anything to go wrong. and doesn t seem like anything is going to go wrong. it seems like the deal is going to take effect. but that s the background for jeff zucker s exit. now, what was the foreground, as these headlines say, he resigned over a relationship with his key lieutenant, the head of marketing and pr for cnn. many people inside this company believe it would not have come to this without chris cuomo. let s unpack that as the wall street journal reported, chris cuomo s legal team raised questions about zucker s relationship. they brought it to the forefront. think back one year to
beijing olympics. they are not holding back when it comes to china s human rights abuses. we re going to analyze that coming up. and later big tech platforms leaching money from local media. does d.c. have the solution? senator amy klobuchar joins us in a few minutes. but first, the future of cable news. inside cnn this was a week like no other. the sudden removal of cnn boss jeff zucker has rattled this news outlet to its core. staffers are confused, angry, and concerned about what might come next so let me try to explain it based on my reporting from inside this very organization. since wednesday morning s resignation shock i have talked with at least 100 people here at all levels as well as sources on the outside who represent all the players, and the dominant question that i m getting from inside cnn is why? why did this happen? this is the ugliest shake up at cnn since the days ted turner
gulust, he said yes but he had not disclosed it before. now, inside cnn people had wondered were they together? but there s a big difference between wondering and knowing. what people did know and i m channeling the feelings of many sources when i say this is that zucker and gulust made each other better at work. they were an incredibly effective team. she was essentially his chief of staff. she could have been in line to run cnn, but now all that s gone. and you can draw a straight line from andrew cuomo s downfall to zucker s. it is almost shakespearian. when zucker s boss warner media ceo found out about the relationship last week he brought it to his boss at&t chief john stankey. my guess is zucker knew there would be fallout because he had violated the code of conduct for not disclosing his relationship with his board senate but he did
january 6th legitimate political discourse. that s disinformation. but, brian, we re there s too much of it. by the way, cnn is one of the stations one of the of all the television broadcast networks and cable channels it pushed harder from 2016 to 2020 against trump and it was part of the fire wall that i think has saved democracy this far under jeff zucker. that is a very important piece of context for the conversations that i ve been having the last few days about zucker s exit. i know a lot of people blame him for enabling trump, others praise him for holding the line and even taking trump to court when needed here at cnn. let me get to one more of the media stories of the week. spotify, this is crazy this weekend, claire, this video comes out, this video compilation of all the times rogen used the n word on his podcast in the past before spotify did that exclusive $100 million distribution deal with rogen.
i also would want to know several different things. apparently cuomo what cuomo s lawyer is alleging is that he was fired for not telling the truth to jeff zucker, which is why zucker said he fired him. is he claiming that zucker did not tell the truth either in the length of time he had been involved with allison or did he give some private advice to andrew cuomo, which came up in your last segment. right. those are really important questions that may or may not get some ventilation in the coming weeks. ken, thank you very much. the bottom line here, everybody, the news continues regardless of who is in charge. there is uncertainty spilling out elsewhere in the media world msnbc s top host on hiatus. and later, the one inning i want everyone to know about cnn and that includes mr. john malone.