Trump's war against CNN could blow up in his face in 2020: conservative political consultant

Ryan Girdusky, a Trump-backing conservative political consultant, is warning President Donald Trump to be careful what he wishes for when it comes to the fate of CNN.

In a column for The Week, Girdusky is arguing that the president was being shortsighted when he cheered on hedge-fund billionaire Paul Singer's company after it acquired a massive $3.2 billion stake in AT&T, whose subsidiary Warner Media owns CNN.

Given that Singer is a major conservative fundraiser, Trump clearly hopes that he'll put pressure on CNN to give the president more favorable coverage, or at the very least lay off a bunch of people at the network whom the president hates.

Girdusky, however, thinks that Singer's brand of "vulture capitalism" will likely cause the president more pain heading into a crucial election year.

"But the far more likely outcome is that Singer will force one of the nation's largest employers to lay off tens of thousands of workers, which could backfire badly on Trump," he writes. "Indeed, Singer and Elliott Management have a long history of slashing domestic jobs to boost stock prices through a practice known as 'activist investing.'"

Girdusky then outlines the dangers that this could create, especially if the president winds up running against a populist Democrat.

"This style of capitalism is considered objectionable by the general public, and pushes people to embrace more socialist agendas," he argues. "Enter Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts senator and 2020 Democratic candidate smells an opportunity in the looming mass layoffs at AT&T."

Read the whole column here.