{"id":335269,"date":"2025-12-09T20:27:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335269\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T20:27:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T20:27:07","slug":"paramount-chief-reportedly-promised-trump-sweeping-changes-at-cnn-as-part-of-warner-bros-takeover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/335269\/","title":{"rendered":"Paramount chief reportedly promised Trump \u2018sweeping changes\u2019 at CNN as part of Warner Bros. takeover"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his effort to win over Donald Trump\u2019s approval as he looks to gobble up Warner Bros. Discovery<\/a>, Paramount chief executive David Ellison told White House officials in recent days that he would make \u201csweeping changes\u201d at the cable news channel that sparks the president\u2019s ire the most: CNN.<\/p>\n

According to the Wall Street Journal<\/a>, Ellison \u2013 who launched a $108 billion hostile takeover bid<\/a> of WBD after Netflix and Warner announced their deal last week \u2013 made a trip to Washington recently to assure Trump administration officials that CNN would have a new look if he bought the network\u2019s parent company.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump has told people close to him that he wants new ownership of CNN as well as changes to CNN programming,\u201d the WSJ added.<\/p>\n

Ellison\u2019s vow to overhaul the network that Trump has obsessively labeled \u201cfake news\u201d comes after the media mogul\u2019s father, close Trump ally and megabillionaire Larry Ellison, talked with the White House<\/a> about getting rid of certain CNN hosts as part of a Paramount takeover of Warner. The elder Ellison, who is the world\u2019s second richest man, is bankrolling much of Paramount\u2019s WBD offer.<\/p>\n

According to The Guardian<\/a>, in one phone call with the White House, Larry Ellison \u201cengaged in a dialogue about possibly axing some of the CNN hosts whom Donald Trump is said to loathe, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"David<\/p>\n

David Ellison wants to combine CBS News and CNN, and has said he\u2019s had \u2018great conversations\u2019 with Trump about his plans. (AFP\/Getty)<\/p>\n

Shortly after he unveiled his hostile takeover bid on Monday, which includes investments from Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner<\/a> and the sovereign wealth funds of several Middle Eastern countries, the younger Ellison detailed what his vision for CNN would be under a Paramount ownership. (Netflix\u2019s deal with Warner<\/a> would see CNN spun off into a separate company.)<\/p>\n

Speaking to CNBC\u2019s David Faber, Ellison said that he wanted to \u201cbuild a scaled news service that is basically fundamentally in the trust business, that is in the truth business, and that speaks to the 70 percent of Americans that are in the middle.\u201d<\/p>\n

He further declared that he would combine CNN with CBS News, which is now run by \u201canti-woke\u201d former New York Times columnist Bari Weiss, and the new news organization would echo the vision he\u2019s laid out for the Weiss-led CBS.<\/p>\n

On top of that, Ellison said he\u2019s had \u201cgreat conversations\u201d with Trump about Paramount\u2019s plan for its proposed CBS-CNN news business, but added that he didn\u2019t want to speak for Trump.<\/p>\n

While the president has repeatedly gushed over the Ellisons in recent months, especially after the politically fraught Paramount-Skydance merger that was approved by the Trump administration, his tone suddenly changed Monday<\/a> following a 60 Minutes interview with his loyalist-turned-rival Marjorie Taylor Greene.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy real problem with the show, however, wasn\u2019t the low IQ traitor, it was that the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air,\u201d Trump raged in a social media rant. \u201cTHEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME! Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters Monday afternoon<\/a>, the president also seemed to display some residual anger towards the Ellisons over the 60 Minutes segment when asked how involved he was going to be in approving any Warner Bros. deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know the companies very well. I know what they are doing. But I have to see\u2026 what percentage of market they have. We have to see the Netflix percentage of market, Paramount percentage of market,\u201d he said. \u201cI mean, none of them are particularly great friends of mine. I want to do what\u2019s right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In his effort to win over Donald Trump\u2019s approval as he looks to gobble up Warner Bros. Discovery,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":335270,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[49,48,147339,18027,1376,75,147338,20522,1316,9489,348,4432,1971],"class_list":{"0":"post-335269","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-cnn-hosts","11":"tag-david-ellison","12":"tag-donald-trump","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-hostile-takeover","15":"tag-larry-ellison","16":"tag-netflix","17":"tag-paramount","18":"tag-tv","19":"tag-warner-bros","20":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=335269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/335269\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/335270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=335269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=335269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=335269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}