{"id":174890,"date":"2025-12-09T00:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T00:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/174890\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T00:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T00:03:08","slug":"battle-over-future-of-warner-bros-discovery-captures-trumps-attention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/174890\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle over future of Warner Bros. Discovery captures Trump\u2019s attention"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n The mounting battle to purchase<\/a> one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest prizes \u2014 Warner Bros. Discovery \u2014 has captured President Donald Trump\u2019s attention as he sees his own interests entwined in the transaction and appears poised to try to influence its outcome.\n <\/p>\n

\n On Sunday evening, Trump declared he\u2019d be \u201cinvolved\u201d in the regulatory decisions<\/a> on whether to allow a proposed sale of the company to Netflix, which announced<\/a> a $72 billion deal to buy a large part of Warner Bros. Discovery last week. Ordinarily such decisions are kept at arm\u2019s length from the White House.\n <\/p>\n

\n The next morning, a rival company, Paramount, launched a hostile takeover bid<\/a> for Warner Bros. Discovery, citing in part a \u201cchallenging regulatory approval process\u201d for Netflix to get its deal approved.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump avoided taking sides when pressed on the developments a few hours later.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cNone of them are particularly great friends of mine,\u201d Trump said from the Cabinet Room at the White House. \u201cI want to do what\u2019s right. It\u2019s very important to do what\u2019s right.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n By offering a noncommittal stance while still assuming personal responsibility for the outcome, Trump was placing himself squarely at the center of a transaction that could reshape the American moviemaking and news businesses.\n <\/p>\n

\n Despite claiming none of the players were his friends, Trump is close with billionaire Larry Ellison, whose son, David, became the chief executive of Paramount this year through a merger<\/a> with his smaller company, Skydance Media. A senior White House official said the elder Ellison and Trump had discussed the prospect of a Paramount acquisition.\n <\/p>\n

\n In the fine print of its filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Paramount revealed Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner is involved in the company\u2019s takeover efforts as a financial backer through his private equity firm (Trump said Monday he\u2019d never discussed the matter with Kushner).\n <\/p>\n

\n White House advisers have long speculated about who would buy Warner Bros. Discovery, which is CNN\u2019s parent company, after the company announced it was for sale earlier this fall.\n <\/p>\n

\n White House officials have privately mused a Paramount acquisition could mean a CNN newsroom led by journalist and commentator Bari Weiss, who recently took the helm<\/a> at Paramount-owned CBS, which they viewed as a favorable outcome. The president has told advisers he would support a leadership change at the cable network, which has frequently drawn his ire.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had great conversations with the president about this,\u201d David Ellison said when asked Monday on CNBC whether Trump embraced the idea of Paramount owning CNN. \u201cBut I think I don\u2019t want to speak for him in any way, shape or form.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Yet Trump\u2019s loyalties don\u2019t appear so clear-cut. He seemed to blur his allegiances Monday when he vented frustration at Paramount, saying it had disappointed him in its stewardship of the marquee \u201c60 Minutes\u201d program on CBS News.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cTHEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP, who just paid me millions of Dollars for FAKE REPORTING about your favorite President, ME!\u201d the president wrote on Truth Social, referring to a $16 million settlement<\/a> the former company paid this year to resolve a lawsuit Trump filed. \u201cSince they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n One source familiar with the post said Trump was merely venting that the program had given GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene a platform in its Sunday show<\/a> as he continues to publicly feud with her, and not expressing an opinion on Paramount\u2019s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.\n <\/p>\n

\n Meanwhile, Trump described Netflix co-chief Ted Sarandos as a \u201cgreat person\u201d after a private Oval Office chat last week. Netflix\u2019s offer for Warner Bros. Discovery included only its studio and streaming service, not TV cable outlets like CNN, which would be housed in a new company, Discovery Global.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cHe\u2019s done one of the greatest jobs in the history of movies and other things, and he\u2019s got a lot of interesting things happening, aside from what you\u2019re talking about,\u201d the president said Sunday. One source added that Trump\u2019s praise of Sarandos extends beyond what he\u2019s said publicly \u2014 noting that the president has privately marveled at how the executive has \u201cturned Netflix around.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n At the same event, however, Trump expressed reservations about Netflix\u2019s plan to buy Warner Bros., saying Sarandos \u201cis a fantastic man and I have a lot of respect for him, but it\u2019s a lot of market share.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n It all makes for a complex web for the rival firms to navigate as they jockey for influence. Ordinarily, antitrust decisions about major deals are made after lengthy Justice Department reviews, without explicit political interference. The senior White House official said the president seems neutral when it comes to the issue, suggesting his take changes depending on whom he\u2019s last spoken to \u2014 and that he\u2019s had conversations with all the parties involved.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump is making no secret that he\u2019s planning to be part of the decision-making.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThey have a very big market share. And when they have Warner Bros., you know, that share goes up a lot,\u201d Trump said as he was arriving to the Kennedy Center Honors<\/a> on Sunday. \u201cSo I don\u2019t know. That\u2019s gonna be for some economists to tell \u2026 and I\u2019ll be involved in that decision, too.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Larry Ellison, the founder of technology company Oracle, has a close relationship with the Trump White House, two sources told CNN, though they could not give specifics on how often he spoke with the president directly, or whether he had discussed business plans on the potential purchase with Trump. Ellison has also been a major Republican donor and hosted a fundraiser for Trump in 2020.\n <\/p>\n

\n Those ties, combined with a belief among some of Trump\u2019s supporters that a Paramount takeover of CNN could prove advantageous for the president, seemed to suggest to some that Paramount would find regulatory approval easier than Netflix.\n <\/p>\n

\n Moments after the announcement last week that Netflix was planning to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, Trump allies began slamming the potential deal online, claiming it would lead to a large-scale \u201cwoke\u201d indoctrination and linking Netflix to former President Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, who have a production deal with the streaming giant.\n <\/p>\n

\n Trump, however, offered no preference when discussing the battle at the White House on Monday.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI know the companies very well. I know what they\u2019re doing,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I have to see.\u201d\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The mounting battle to purchase one of Hollywood\u2019s biggest prizes \u2014 Warner Bros. Discovery \u2014 has captured President…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[146,85,46,411],"class_list":["post-174890","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-entertainment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-tv"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174890","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}