T-Mobile execs stayed at Trump hotel? Coincidence, surely
Does that sigh in the background say "Introducing Trump"?
It's the people's carrier. The Un-carrier, and not as in "Kim Jong-Un."
Its ethos is to challenge authority, to take on the molochs of the mobile world like AT&T and Verizon.
Why, its CEO John Legere wears pink t-shirts to work, constantly curses and posts funny videos on Twitter.
These are the children of the revolution, not the old people who want you to get off their lawn.
I'm therefore stunned that the Washington Post could possibly suggest that, immediately after the merger with Sprint was announced, T-Mobile executives poured into the Trump International Hotel in Washington DC.
The Post claims that as well as Legere, the carrier's chief operating officer, chief technology officer, chief strategy officer and chief financial officer all checked into the Trump.
Could it be that these bastions of the proletariat had suddenly become part of the Trumpenproletariat?
The Post goes on to claim this wasn't a one-off stay because no other hotel in DC was available -- no other swanky hotel owned by any sort of president or his family, that is.
Please, I know there have been accusations that foreign countries have bought vast numbers of rooms at Trump properties in order, I don't know, to get a 30 percent discount on American guns or something.
I simply cannot believe, though, that Legere might stoop to such chicanery. Why, in 2015, he was extremely unhappy with his stay at the Trump Hotel in New York. Musicians had apparently disturbed his peace and the hotel didn't react as he would have liked.
This led Trump to rebuke Legere in the most forceful terms: "T-Mobile service is terrible! Why can't you do something to improve it for your customers. I don't want it in my buildings."
Which led Legere to remove himself from the building, go to another hotel and tweet: "@realDonaldTrump I am so happy to wake up in a hotel where every single item isn't labeled 'Trump' and all the books and TV is about him."
Can it be that Legere, so keen to ensure that his controversial merger with Sprint goes through, has succumbed to sucking up, perhaps for the first time in his life?
Can it be that a man so vocal about his freewheeling ways would cower to power?
You see, what's most disturbing is that the Post claims that Legere and his executives kept on sleeping at the Trump. The paper says it caught Legere there only last week. Only for him, oddly, to move out and go to the Four Seasons. Perhaps some musicians had again wrecked his evening.
I asked T-Mobile for its view and a spokesperson told me: "The T-Mobile senior leadership team stays at a variety of hotels in DC and across the country -- and they are chosen primarily based on proximity to the meetings being conducted."
Primarily.
Still, I can't believe that T-Mobile would try to curry favor in such a banal manner, merely in order to secure a merger that might make its executives vast piles of lucre.
I'm left with only a couple of possibilities as to why Legere and his legions would stay at the Trump.
One, they got a stupendous deal. After all, the president is known as an excellent dealmaker, so perhaps his company is wily in offering block bookings to corporate executives.
My second possibility is, perhaps, even more likely.
Perhaps the T-Mobile signal reception is much better at the DC Trump than elsewhere.