{"id":354265,"date":"2026-09-23T04:12:48","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:12:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/354265\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T04:12:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T04:12:48","slug":"ny-mayor-zohran-mamdani-blasts-paramount-wbd-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/354265\/","title":{"rendered":"NY Mayor Zohran Mamdani Blasts Paramount-WBD Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNew York Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, a day after continuing his congenial dealings with President Donald Trump, blasted the \u201cfederal leaders\u201d supporting the Paramount<\/a>-Warner Bros. Discovery merger. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAmerica is free only when the media is competitive, independent, and accountable to the people,\u201d Mamdani posted on X Tuesday. \u201cThis merger strikes a chilling blow against that freedom \u2013 and hands even more power to billionaires like David Ellison to decide what Americans see and hear, all while lifting scrutiny off the federal leaders who pushed it through.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tParamount on Monday reached a settlement<\/a> with attorneys general from 12 states, including New York, as well as with the Writers Guild of America in dual antitrust lawsuits filed last July. The agreements remove the final barriers keeping Paramount from closing the controversial $111 billion transaction, which will remake Hollywood and likely result in sizable layoffs.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump has yet to weigh in publicly on the deal, though Larry Ellison, the Oracle billionaire who is a key funder of the deal and CEO David Ellison\u2019s father, is an ally of the president.<\/p>\n

\n\tMamdani in his post saluted New York AG Letitia James \u201cfor the protections she secured for workers.\u201d He closed with a withering line about the regulatory process, though he didn\u2019t make the target of his scorn completely clear. \u201cThis decision is a shameful monument to corruption and a betrayal that the American people won\u2019t soon forget,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe social media missile stood in contrast with Monday\u2019s atmosphere at Gracie Mansion, where Mamdani hosted Trump at the mayoral residence during his visit for the United Nations General Assembly. Their joint news conference showcased their mutually respectful, at times almost playful, dynamic. Behind closed doors, they said they discussed topics like affordable housing and immigration.<\/p>\n

\n\tTrump repeated his hope that Mamdani would be \u201ca great mayor.\u201d Mamdani defended the decision to engage peaceably with Trump despite their many policy disagreements. \u201cI committed over the course of the campaign, as well as while being in office, that I would meet with anyone, work with anyone that could deliver for New Yorkers,\u201d he said. \u201cSo having a conversation about potentially building 12,000 homes, about the importance of our Haitian neighbors here in this city, those are conversations that are worthwhile to have.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven though the president has mounted constant attacks on \u201cradical\u201d and \u201cCommunist\u201d Democratic candidates in November\u2019s midterm elections, he has appeared to be charmed by the young mayor of his home town. They have met two previous times at the White House.<\/p>\n

\n\tPresidential visits to Gracie Mansion have been rare, the New York Times noted<\/a>. Harry Truman attended a luncheon there in 1949 for a ceremony during construction of the UN\u2019s headquarters building. John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan appeared there in 1962 and 1981, respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a day after continuing his congenial dealings with President Donald Trump, blasted the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":354266,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,3005,132106,82198,112443,82],"class_list":["post-354265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-paramount","tag-paramount-antitrust-settlement","tag-paramount-wb","tag-wbd","tag-zohran-mamdani"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=354265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/354265\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/354266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=354265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=354265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=354265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}