the ceo of at&t, randall stephenson, says hiring the president's personal lawyer, michael cohen, wasent this memo to employees. our company has been in the headlines for all of the wrong reasons as our reputation has been damaged. there's no way -- no other way to say it. at&t hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. to be clear, everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate, but the fact is our past association with cohen was a serious misjudgment. in this instance our washington, d.c.'s team's vetting process clearly failed and i take responsibility for that. >> a source now tells cnn the company paid cohen $600,000 for his help over the course of the year. cnn legal analyst asha joins us right now. at&t says it did nothing illegal here. "the washington post" obtained documents that said why cohen was hired. to focus on long-term initiatives as well as corporate tax reform and the acquisition of time warner. this was three days after the inauguration. at&t hired this real estate lawyer who has taxi medallions to advise on telecommu

did randall stephenson disclose it then?se it when mueller first said, hey, we're looking at this relationship and we want documents from now? or did he disclose it last week when stormy daniels' lawyer first disclosed all this stuff because he was investigating michael cohen's consulting firm -- neil: who reached out to whom? did cohen reach out, i'm close to the president? i don't know. >> that's a good question. he has reached out to certain people -- neil: yeah. >> okay? i'm not sure what happened with at&t. listen, it may be completely normal to hire michael cohen because he knows the president pretty well. but remember, you're not just hiring some guy that knows the president, you are hiring the president's personal lawyer. and when i asked at&t these questions like when it was disclosed -- neil: right. >> -- they refused to answer. and it makes me think, and i've heard this -- you know, i did a story last week saying randall stephenson's got some issues with his board on a lot of corporate matters. and this kind of fe

the key question, though, is when did randall stephenson know?to several at&t press officers. they have not responded to this question. one responded by saying you have the information before you. randall stephenson said he takes full responsibility for this. we don't know what the consequences of his failure, because they failed to vet michael cohen, will be. neil. >> neil: you think about it, how could they have known so much that has since transpired on michael cohen back then? >> that's a very good question. but they're not answering the questions. the key question is when did randall stephenson know they would be paying michael cohen $600,000 and then for what. >> neil: thank you, my friend. keeping an eye on apple, they're down a little bit today. the big search for that $1 trillion quest to get up to the most valued company on the planet. the tech watch extraordinaire gene munster on this. i know when you get close to something like that it's in fits and starts. i just think it's a matter of when, not if. what about you? >> yeah, it's a ma

ceo randall stephenson says bob quinn will retire. some say he is being forced out .association was a serious misjudgment. we unannounced this deal and they said the best legal minds in the country were a great deal. here we are. the government has filed a lawsuit. it stretches the . reach of antitrust law beyond the breaking point. they hired cohen and agreed to pay him $50,000 a month. in a memo to employees, stephenson noted the company's reputation had been damaged. they seek to block at&t's acquisition of time warner, on the grounds it would stifle competition. the companies do not compete with each other and this draws more accusations of bias. >> the department of justice is once again along with the fbi, exceeded the authority, including under fisa, each summary look at the record, we found that the department of justice under republican and democratic administration, has failed to live up to this spirit of the law. >> u.s. richard justice is expected to issue a ruling on the time warner at&t deal, next month. >>> >> coming up, high winds are expected this wee

national president the girl scouts of the usa were scathing letter to boy scout president mr randall stephenson stating that she found the idea of the boy scouts letting girls and quote unsettling that b.s.a. would seek to up that a paradigm that has served with bows boys and girls so well through the years and that they should quote not consider expanding to work crew girls the letter went on to attack the boy scouts decision as dangerous and reckless saying the girls need a safe space and that the girl scouts are the only ones equipped to handle the needs of young women the most puzzling of all was an accusation that they were secretly testing the idea to appeal to my little millennial parrots apparently that's a crime the question is why are the girl scouts treating young women and girls as mindless commodities that are only allowed to be used by their own gender in such a public way and what does it say about women in the leader of a major women's organization is using the emasculation of one of the men's organization in order to keep their membership numbers up and keep those cookie sales

randall stephenson the ceo of at&t, announced mr.as retiring, along with many other revelations. in a memo to every at&t employee worldwide. now this memo comes at a time after admitting they paid $600,000 to president trump's attorney, michael cohen. they said they hired cohen as a political consultant. this issue came up during the press briefing today with press secretary sarah huckabee sanders. here is what she said? >> i think that this further proves that the president's not going to be influenced by special interests. this is actually the definition of draining the swamp. reporter: but there are problems for at&t. mr. stephenson saying in the memo, this is a quote, our reputation has been damaged. there is no other way to say it. at&t hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. and randall stephenson goes on to say everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate but the fact is our past association with cohen was a serious misjudgment. in this instance our washington, d.c., team ve

i would be very surprised if randall stephenson didn't know michael cohen was working.'m not saying he did. liz: 600 grand. >> 600 grand. that is big chunk. here is what we know, at&t board members are increasingly frustrated with him, worried openly about his judgment, lack of judgment given this latest misstep. we should report they were worried about lack of judgment on mergers. the ill-fated t-mobile merger in 2011. obama justice department, said a lot of people thought he should have known and not wasted the time with this. what they're saying with this, quite frankly if at&t does not get a clean win on the case to take over time warner, as you know judge leon, the federal district judge is set to rule by june, he set himself a date certain, by june, it could come sooner, if they don't get a clear win that the guy is on thin ice with the board and he could be out. what is a clear win? you could do the deal, we'll not stop it and there aren't any conditions. here is where it gets rough from mr. stephenson, i'm getting, my sources telling to telecom lobbyists are tal

here is a part of what at&t ceo randall stephenson is saying to employees this morning. way to say it, at&t hired him as a political consultant, a big mistake. to be clear, everything we did was according to the law and legitimate, but the past association with cohen was a serious misjudgment. cohen, of course, now under federal investigation, this is one of those cases where if you work with someone dirty, you get your own hands dirty as well. cohen has not been indicted at this point. a lot of speculation he will be in the coming months. that's one reason why at&t is now out here expressing regret for this. and one more detail we learned this morning, the head of at&t's d.c. office in charge of lobby and legislative affairs, he is suddenly retiring. i think that's code for being asked to leave. >> this is a big amount of crow being eaten by at&t. >> yes, indeed. >> a lot of questions. brian stelter, thank you very much. >>> we have the breaking news we're following out of los angeles county . the l.a. county sheriffs tell us they're responding to multiple reports of a

reporter: with at&t awaiting a judge's ruling on whether it will be able to buy time warner, ceo randall stephensonconsolidation is inevitable. >> nobody knows what the future is going to look like five or six years from now, but the bet most people are making is premium content is going to be very, very relevant five or six years from now. a lot of bandwidth is going to be required to make all that happen and there are going to be new kind of business models surrounding this. >> reporter: with at&t looking to grow, it feels pressure from big tech. one of those big tech companies, facebook, is feeling the heat here at the code conference. fox ceo james murdoch criticizing facebook ads and how it's been used as a platform for manipulation. snap ceo took a dig at facebook for copying its features but not its more stringent regulation policy. >> they've changed their prun products and changed the mission. fundamental they're having a hard time changing the dna of their campaign. and the dna of their company is all about having people compete online for attention. >> reporter: cheryl sandberg respondin

there is no other way to say it, at&t ceo randall stephenson wrote to employees today, hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. but the ceo also says hiring cohen was legal and legitimate. and that it was cohen, donald trump's longtime personal attorney and fixer, who approached at&t during the transition period. over the next year the company paying cohen's llc a total of $600,000. tonight, the question, what did at&t think it could get from a deal with someone so close to the president? the company points out it hired consultants like cohen for advice about its proposed merger with time warner. a merger president trump spoke out against on the campaign trail. >> it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. >> reporter: along with that $600,000 dollars from at&t, also under scrutiny a reported $500,000 in payments to cohen from columbus nova, a company with deep ties to a putin ally. and $1.2 million dollars from swiss pharmaceutical giant novartis. novartis is also calling their deal with cohen "a mistake." tonight, the attorney for porn sta

here's what reuters is reporting now, saying that at&t's randal stephenson says he takes responsibilitye vetting process with the cohen hire at&t saying it hired several consultants to help understand how the trump administration might approach a wide range of issues, including that time warner deal that the company has been so focused on at&t's head of external and legislationive affairs bob quinn is retiring, according to this memo obtained by reuters at&t's hiring of michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. that's in an employee memo to at&t that was obtained by reuters also this morning, "the washington post" reporting new details on exactly what they hired michael cohen for. take a look at the headlines from "the washington post" this morning. you'll see that the post is reporting that they've got new documents from inside this deal in which they say the company referred specifically to hiring him to deal with the proposed merger with time warner. that's according to those dock yumt yum -- documents obtained by reuters. they said in early 2017, as president trump

national president the girl scouts of the usa were scathing letter to boy scout president mr randall stephenson stating that she found the idea of the boy scouts letting girls and quote unsettling that b.s.a. would seek to up that a paradigm that has served with those boys and girls so well through the years and that they should quote not consider expanding to work crew girls the letter went on to attack the boy scouts decision as dangerous and reckless saying the girls need a safe space and that the girl scouts are the only ones equipped to handle the needs of young women the most puzzling of all was an accusation that they were secretly testing the idea to appeal to my little millennial parents apparently that's a crime the question is why are the girl scouts treating young women and girls as mindless commodities that are only allowed to be used by their own gender in such a public way and what does it say about women when the leader of a major women's organization is using the emasculation of one of the men's organization in order to keep their membership numbers up and keep those cookie sal

national president the girl scouts of the usa were scathing letter to boy scout president mr randall stephenson stating that she found the idea of the boy scouts letting girls end quote unsettling that b.s.a. would seek to up and a paradigm that has served with those boys and girls so well through the years and that they should quote not consider expanding to work crew girls the letter went on to attack the boy scouts decision as dangerous and reckless saying the girls need a safe space and that the girl scouts are the only ones equipped to handle the needs of young women the most puzzling of all was an accusation that they were secretly testing the idea to appeal to my little millennial parents apparently that's a crime the question is why are the girl scouts treating young women and girls as mindless commodities that are only allowed to be used by their own gender in such a public way and what does it say about women when the leader of a major women's organization is using the emasculation of one of the men's organization in order to keep their membership numbers up and keep those cookie sale

on top of that at&t randall stephenson personally gives thousands of dollars to d.c.1,000 to paul ryan, 2700 to john mccain, 10,000 to the national republican senate toirl committee. not to mention the thousands of dollars he's donated to his own company's political action committee. this is the kind of corruption that donald trump was elected to stop. and let's be fair. he's delivered some of his drain the swamp pledges, like cracking down on the resolving door between government and lobbying. and michael cohen's peddling didn't work. the trump administration took at&t to court to block the merger. but the sight of a trump insider running around trying to help big corporations is an insult to every trump voter. just today "the wall street journal" is reporting that michael cohen pushed his swampy service to ford as well. donald trump was elected to be the voice for the voiceless, to help the forgotten men and women of america, not to help big business get its way in washington. what part of drain the swamp did michael cohen not understand. pointing this out is not be

. >> jon: just in, at&t's ceo randall stephenson calling the hires of michael cohen a big mistake andaging to the company's reputation. he sent a letter saying -- >> melissa: president trump doubling down on his decision to withdraw from the iran nuclear agreement during a rally in indiana last night. more on the message sent to north korea and tehran in the wake of that decision. once there was an organism so small no one thought much of it at all. people said it just made a mess until exxonmobil scientists put it to the test. they thought someday it could become fuel and power our cars wouldn't that be cool? and that's why exxonmobil scientists think it's not small at all. energy lives here. >> happy mother's day to all the mothers including you. is take a thank you, or you're going to help deliver a few flowers in your neck of the world. that'll be so fun. thank you for joining us. speak about number starts right now. we want to fox news alert, president from making new remarks about his upcoming summit was north korean leader kim jong un found in the united states will not be walk

. >> reporter: randall stephenson sent a memo to all employees worldwide saying $600,000 at&t paid toel cohen was fully legal but our reputation has been damaged. there is no other way to say it was hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. stephenson said robert mueller's investigators contacted at&t in november and december last year. at&t has cooperated fully and provided all information requested according to stephenson. the company says michael cohen approached at&t about becoming a political consultant during the presidential transition and cohen was hired on a consulting and advisory basis. :was allowed to lobby on behalf of of at&t if he notified the company he was doing that. press secretary sarah sanders was asked about at&t hiring:. >> that proves the pres. will not be impacted by special interest, the definition of draining the swamp when the president talked about repeatedly during the campaign. >> stephenson said past association with cohen was serious misjudgments. in this instance are washington dc vetting team process clearly failed and i take

now ceo randall stephenson cut to the chase, quoting employees and saying there is no other way to say it. hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a mistake. and, it's unlikely mr. quinn knew he wasn't retiring until this week. at&t acknowledges that special counsel robert mueller requested information regarding the relationship with michael: but the company maintains that the mistake was above board. >> in the meantime, the president is taking on those high drug prices. now a lot of people are saying, you can't start legislating and approving or disapproving the price of everything. but the president has the upper hand on this because he's talking about people affording the drugs that keep them alive and keep them well. is he on to something? after this. prevagen. the name to remember. how much money do you think you'll need in retirement? then we found out how many years that money would last them. how long do you think we'll keep -- oooooohhh! you stopped! you're gonna leave me back here at year 9? how did this happen? it turned out, a lot of people fell short, of even th

>> randall stephenson sent a memo saying they're in the headlines for reasons they don't want to be ineadlines and stephenson even talked about mr. quinn, the chief lobbyist resigning from his position but saying he's retiring. sources telling the wall street journal that quinn was forced out. stephenson said in the medium pillow that "our reputation has been damaged. there's no other way to say it, at&t hiring michael cohen was a big mistake. he went on in the memo to say everything we did was according to the law and legitimate. the fact is, our past association with cohen was a serious misjudgment. our washington d.c. team's vetting process failed and i take responsibility for that. now there's been no negative consequences for mr. stephenson because that $600,000 was paid to michael cohen and mr. stephenson included talking points for at&t employees saying it's common for companies as at&t did to hire political consultants. he points out that mr. cohen was not to lobby on behalf of at&t unless mr. cohen notified at&t. then at the very end of those talking points, they talk about th

julia, some of the headlines from randall stephenson right now? >> it was interesting wias you mentioned how he explained the deal at the time he explained the deal he why it should be approved right now we're awaiting a ruling by the judge in that lawsuit between the doj and at&t in efforts to buy time warner. app lot of it came down to the growing power of the tech stocks he mentioned just how much value the tech stocks, the fang stocks have added since the deal was first announced to just give a sense of how big those giants are. and he said this kind of consolidation was really the wave of the future and he talked about the kind of value they're going to be able to create by combining distribution and the data they get from distribution with that premium content. interesting to see how he paired the defense of the deal along with the justification for the value of the deal. >> julia, great stuff. thanks much for that right there. julia boorstin, of course, has been giving us great coverage from the recode conference >> he was also asked about

regard to these companies paying something like michael cohen >> first, i would be shocked if randall stephenson know in today's "washington post" story, these are two washington public affairs officials who paid this money. that said, at&t did also mention they've done things like this in prior administrations. sadly this is not an outlier in every administration there are various forms of -- you could think of going back not to just warren hearting and that far, but both bush administrati administrations, clinton administration, obama administration, they had clubs where he would pay quarterly the stories about the lincoln bedroom are real you pay a price tag. there's ban loeen a long pattern pay for access is a part of our history. >> we have to leave the conversation there jeff sonnenfeld, thank you dom wo dom, great working with you. this is bill's yard. and bill has a "no-weeds, not in my yard" policy. but with scotts turf builder weed & feed, bill has nothing to worry about. it kills weeds and greens grass, guaranteed. this is a scotts yard. and greens grass, guaranteed. we're experts in

. >> employees of at&t received a letter from ceo randall stephenson today giving background about the deal the company entered into with michael cohen, which reads in part there is no other way to say it. at&t hiring michael: as a political consultant was a big mistake. to be clear, everything we did was done according to the law and entirely legitimate. the fact is that her pup past association with him was as serious misjudgment. with this, the vetting group clearly failed. the memo also included a fact sheet and outlining the payments in the contract and what was expected to come out of the agreement. stevenson writes, at&t paid cohen's firm a total of $600,000 to help them understand how the president and his administration might approach issues important to the company, including its reported $85.4 billion merger with time warner. the fact sheet further explains, cohen didn't perform legal or lobbying work on behalf of at&t and he never arranged meetings for the company with the president. as far as the robert mueller investigation, at&t set up when it was contacted by the specia

of at&t randall stephenson with a statement saying there is no other way to say it, at&t hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake. the past association with cohen was a serious misjudgment. in this instance our washington, d.c. team vetting process clearly failed and i take responsibility for that. news also this afternoon that senior at&t official has decided to, "retire" as a result of this. others saying he was pushed out. theyry vehicled they paid cohen -- they revealed they paid cohen on a contract from january to december of 2017 and total payments of $600,000. at&t says it was cohen who approached them in the transition telling them he would be leaving the trump organization to do consulting for a select few companies who wanted his take on the new president and his administration. the key players, the priorities and how they think. at&t also revealing today they were contacted by the special counsel's office in the fall of last year. and provided any and all information that the special counsel requested in november and december of 2017. so, the intrigue

. >> ryan from airbnb, dara from uber, daniel ek from spotify, we have randall stephenson, caterina lakestitchfix just an amazing lineup mary maker delivering her report and senator john warner very soon, talking about the -- mark warner, i'm sorry. >> if there's a narrative running through this all year. >> technology responsibility and regulation and will tech grow up and where does it go from here what's the next move >> really good stuff. >> thank you. >> as always, thanks for having us good seeing you, cara swisher of recode back to the nyse. >> thanks very much. we want to have a quick check in on where markets stand we are higher today, markets opened higher and steadily improved over the last hour and a half or so we're up about 0.8% on the dow s&p up 0.9%, and nasdaq up 0.8%. energy sector soaring 3% as wti raises 2%. financials having a better day than yesterday coming up, we hear what silicon heavyweights like sheryl sandberg are saying about tech regulation quk nyer awhe. "sawalley" is back in a couple minutes how do you know you made the right call... ...you just do. the lig

ceo randall stephenson wrote to employees, hiring michael cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake but added it was legal and legitimate saying cohen approached the company offering his opinions on the new president. at&t points out it hired consultants for advice about its proposed merger with time warner which the president has spoken out against on the campaign trail. >> it's too much concentration of power in the hands of too few. >> reporter: overnight the president responding to the story, why doesn't the fake news media state that the trump administration's antitrust division has been and is opposed to the at&t purchase of time warner in a currently ongoing trial. also under scrutiny $1.2 million from swiss pharmaceutical giant novartis, which also called its deal with cohen a mistake and $500,000 paid to cohen from columbus nova. some of cohen's financial dealings were revealed by the attorney for adult film star stormy daniels. michael avenatti tweeting, more evidence and facts to come relating to mr. cohen's dealings and mr. trump's knowledge and involvement. you can come

. >> reporter: in a stunning message to employees, at&t's ceo randall stephenson said it was a big mistake to hire president trump's personal attorney michael cohen. our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days andet our reputation has been damaged, he said. novartis, a pharmaceutical company has also said hiring cohen was a mistake. both companies say cohen approached them about offering access and insight into the trump administration. at&t paid cohen $600,000 to advise on its propose merger with time warner and other regulatory matters. novartis paid him $1.2 million. the payments were made to the same accounts that were used to direct $130,000 to adult film star daniels not to speak about her alleged affair with the pretty. there's nothing normal about itz. nick allard said it is virtually unheard of for a lawyer to peddle information on his client. >> it's like john gotti's lawyer selling information to the other four families. it just not only isn't done but is a fundamental conflict and a very dangerous one. >> certainly the president has not b

it's another big day today randall stephenson we'll hear from on stage today.libaba, uber, spotify and as the topics are plenty to talk about regarding social, innovation, and tech, obviously. roseanne is a hot topic here and m & a. it brings a new personality every year we're getting a sense of what this is going to be. >> carl, last night the ceo of salesforce told me what mattered was customer and truth and he did intimate he felt that facebook believed that truth is just a by-product. and given it's a by-product therefore it's not front and center is there still below back about whether facebook treats the customers the correct way versus just by-product? >> talking about snapchat or spotify? >> facebook. he was critical of facebook last night. mark saying that he feels facebook did not represent the truth. >> oh, yeah. he's used the tobacco analog for awhile now. >> yeah. >> he's been almost setting the pace for criticism of facebook it's coming from all angles, i think. whether it's lack of original ideas, as spiegel might argue at snap facebook keeps cal

in a memo to employees, randall stephenson, chief executive, said the telecommunications group's reputationas been damaged by signing mr. trump's long-time fixer to a contract shortly after he was elected resident. "there is no other way to say it asat&t hiring michael cohen a political consultant was a big mistake." the veteran that took over the washington-based veterans affairs office just after the election will depart and they will report to the general counsel's office in the dallas headquarters. while how being -- hiring lobbyists with connections is was notual, mr. cohen registered as a lobbyist and had no policy experience, raising questions of whether companies were paying purely for access. special counsel probing the trump campaign's ties to russia and cooperating, mr. cohen's office was raided last month by the fbi after a referral from mr. mueller's prosecuting team. back to our topic this morning, federal drug prices, what the federal drug -- government can do to lower drug prices. john in arvida, colorado, thanks for waiting. caller: my name is john. i had six operations in

at&t ceo randall stephenson is taking the stage and should be sitting down with the ceo of hulu and pandorahap sounds like a great conference thank you for waking up so early in the morning there >>> when we return, coming up in the next half hour, the ceo of ca technologies is going to be ringing the bell but first going to be talking to us that conversation at 8:40 a.m. eastern time the adp employment report coming up as well lots to come your muscles look good, but we should be seeing more range of motion. i'm fine. okay, well let's see you get up from the couch. i'm sorry, what? grandpa come. at cognizant, we're uniting doctors, insurers and patients on a collaborative care platform, making it easier to do what's best for everyone's health, every step of the way. you may need more physical therapy. ugh... am i covered for that? yep. look. grandpa catch! grandpa duck! woah! ha! there you go grandpa. keep doing that. get ready, because we're helping leading companies see it- and see it through-with digital. hi, kids! i'm carl and i'm a broker. do you offer $4.95 online equity trades? grea

antitrust issue at least that's what they said >> that's what they said the good news here for randall stephenson jeff bewkes is it signals they think the at&t/time warner deal is going to get passed >> let's just be clear a bid has not been made. the only thing that we understand that has happened and the reason we're even seeing these stories is there's been some conversation between comcast and a number of the banks around a bridge loan if, in fact, the opportunity were arise. >> another signal benchmark too. comcast yesterday filed with the eu to buy sky which is part of the plan disney wants sky as well. >> are you a fan strategically of the idea of comcast owning fox? >> it's not going to happen. >> why >> because they've already got all the content that they need diss kn disney -- >> who has all the content they need >> disney. >> clearly to the extent that fox wants -- there's a view that maybe we don't have enough >> and it's a higher bid and it's cash. >> it is high. >> so it comes back? >> the earlier offer included stock which murdochs did not want why don't they want cash they could