Pod Save America - Trump Joins the Streaming Wars

Episode Date: December 9, 2025

The fate of Hollywood rests in President Trump's hands as Netflix and Paramount fight to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery—the home of HBO Max, Harry Potter, and Superman. Will Trump back Paramount's bid by longtime loyalist Larry Ellison (with help from presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner)? Or will Netflix's Ted Sarandos be able to woo the President to his side? Jon, Tommy, and Lovett discuss Trump's involvement in the Hollywood mega-deal and all the rest of the news, including the administration's bailout for soybean farmers who have been hurt by tariffs, Congressional Republicans unwillingness to do anything about the coming ACA premium hikes, and the President's promise to sign an executive order that would sweep away state AI regulations. Then, Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, who broke the Warner Brothers merger news, talks to Lovett about the future of Hollywood and the details of the rival bids for WBD.For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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This six-part series reveals how an executive order authorizing the roundup of innocent Americans came to be and a bombshell discovery in the unlikeliest of places that would ultimately expose it all. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm John Fabro. I'm John Lovett. I'm Tommy Vitor. On today's show, we'll talk about how Republicans are about to let your health care premiums double or triple and what Trump has decided to do about all the economic harm he's inflicted. We'll also get into the politics of the next big media merger between Netflix and Warner Brothers Discovery, where

Trump has, of course, inserted himself. Then we'll hear Levitt's interview with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw, who reported out the story of Netflix buying Warner's and why it matters. But let's start with this week's big push from the White House on the issue Trump calls a con job and a hoax. Affordability. Even though the administration has been trying their best to keep potentially bad economic news to themselves, they just announced the report on a key measure of inflation will be delayed until next month. The data we do have hasn't been great. Consumer sentiment is down 28% from last December.

Big retailers keep warning that they're about to increase prices because they can't continue to absorb the costs of Trump's tariffs. Private companies cut 32,000 jobs last month, led by small businesses, which can't absorb. the cost of tariffs as well as big companies. Total layoffs this year topped 1.1 million, the highest since 2020 in the pandemic. And another pandemic era phrase has returned this holiday season, K-shaped economy, where the richest people are doing great, but those with lower incomes are not. Trump's preferred strategy to deal with us, of course, is to just keep denying reality. But it seems like some combination of his advisors and nervous Republicans in Congress have convinced him to at least try pretending he cares. He issued an executive order last week to develop

a task force to investigate potential price fixing in imported food. The report is due in just six months. And on Monday, he announced a $12 billion bailout paid for by all of us for farmers who are struggling because of Trump's tariffs, which are also being paid for by all of us. Here's Trump at that event. You know, Biden made none. He didn't make any trade deals having to do with the farmers or any of it's crazy. China committed. He was the worst president in the history of our country, by the case anybody has any questions.

We inherited a mess. Democrats caused the affordability problem. They have a tendency to just say this election is based on affordability. And nobody questions them, John, you know? Nobody says, well, what do you mean by that? but they just say the word they never say anything else because they cause the problem

but we're fixing the problem. I wonder why nobody says what do you mean by that? Is it because they're not fucking idiots? What is the word affordability mean? It's funny too that it's that there's two things going on at once which is that costs have never been lower and the economy is completely fucked up

because of the Democrats. Like you just sort of those are the two things happening at the same time. Trump's also heading to Pennsylvania on Tuesday for the first. big economic speech of his nationwide affordability blitz, which I can only assume he'll treat with the kind of message discipline he's known for. You think we'll see a lot of these events? You think he'll stick to the script? I'm excited to watch. It's funny that we're about it's a normal

thing. It's like, we got to do a fucking tour. You got to go out. We're going to do an affordability tour. We're going to put the word affordability behind you. It's like the most old school normal political reaction from a White House. No way the word affordability is behind them, right? This is called it a conjo. He's got, he's going to call it, like, best economy ever. It's going to be, like, aspirational marketing. Or, like, working class tax cuts. Yeah, exactly.

That's the new name for the stupid bill. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So do we think that farmers will be appropriately grateful to the president for easing the pain he continues to inflict on them? Potentially. I mean, this is just the completely predictable outcome of this trade war. It happened in the first term. Remember, he slapped a bunch of tariffs on China.

Then you had to give U.S. farmers a bailout and it's happening again. But this time, it's worse because the Chinese were better prepared. They'd already built these relationships with the farmers. in Argentina and Brazil. They bought soybeans from them. They didn't buy them from the U.S. farmers, which devastated American soybean farmers. I talked about this with Rob Sand, who's running for governor of Iowa in the episode before Thanksgiving. And Trump is claiming that the Chinese are going to buy 12 billion worth of American soybeans, but it hasn't happened yet. Either way, it is completely screwed up the ability of these farmers to plan, manage

crops to all the things they need to do. So I just want to tell you some stats, though, guys. Meanwhile, over in China, in the first 11 months of this year, China's exports in Korea, increased by 5.4%. That's $3.4 trillion in exports. And they have a trade surplus of over $1 trillion, even with an average U.S. tariff of 37%. So exports to the U.S. are down close to 29% from the year before. So the Chinese sold more to Africa, Southeast Asia. Latin America, what a surprise. So maybe this cycle of like bankrupting American farmers and then paying them off will work again. My guess is ultimately these farmers would rather just like run a business and not deal with this shit but making china great again we'll see yeah

trillion dollars trade surplus the bailout also is a fraction of what his policies have cost farmers one estimate put it out on 44 billion dollars for this year and I want to imagine what it would be like if there was a democratic policy to tax an industry into oblivion and then send a check for roughly a third or a quarter of that amount to the people impacted and what Republicans would do with that mix of protectionism and winner-chusing. Yeah, and idiocy.

I mean, Trump said it himself, he said at that event, he goes, this money would not be possible without tariffs. Because of tariffs, this is possible. Yes, we know. Yeah, that's the whole problem. And part of, I would say, like, to me,

my bigger question in all of this is, why isn't there more political fallout among farmers in this moment and like more of an effort to figure how to build, like, support for Democratic candidates or Democratic policies in these states, because this is ridiculous. I mean, these are people that are being decimated. The amount Trump is going to send as a bailout is no match for the cost that he's incurring on their economies. And we will also, and then someone like Rob Sand, who's a great candidate, will struggle as hard

as possible to overcome the disadvantage of being a Democrat running in a state of as red as Iowa. I will say I did an event last month with the One House candidate from Iowa and from Wisconsin, and they were saying it's all they hear everywhere from farmers and people in rural America. There's a lot of consolidation of these big agribusinesses that ultimately probably like tax cuts and deregulation in other places. But yeah, it's terrible. Yeah, a better way to maybe say it is like how can we turn this into an opportunity?

The other challenge with doing it this way, aside from me just being stupid to slap tariffs on people that hurt them, and then use taxpayer dollars to help defray some of the pain. It's punching someone in the face and then giving them an Advil. Is the way that the program is going through this like bridge program at USDA, the Agriculture Department. And when they did this in the first term, because I think he gave $20 billion back in the first term, independent analysis from the New York Times found that the payments that they made disproportionately went to the largest and wealthiest farms. Absolutely. So it's not really, there's no good.

good way to target the bailout to the people that are being hurt worst by the terrorists, which is a real fucking problem. We love our farmers, though. One of those larger and wealthier farms might belong to a soybean farmer, Scott Bessent, who's somehow still out there saying this, this is from the Sunday shows. I'm involved in the agriculture industry. I run a soybean farm, and I can tell you. You own one. You invest in it.

Sorry? You own or invest a soybean farm. And people in my family go out and work on it. I actually just divest it this week as part of my ethics agreement. So I'm out of that business. People in his family. You think we're going third, fourth cousins? What do you think?

Botox's his personality like that dude? Yeah, that makes cadavers look loose. He's really gotten worse. He's gotten worse. Yeah. Some of my best friends are. By like 2027, he'll just be like, I do, I am grateful that he decided to deal with a massive conflict of interest in December of 2020. I'm glad we got there after months of negotiating deals, agriculture deals.

Unbelievable. And of course, you know, there was the bailout. He's also, Trump has sort of finally, I guess this is like a couple weeks ago, maybe last month, lifted the tariffs on all the food that we don't actually grow here, you know? He finally realized that we don't make bananas in the United States and coffee. So a little late on that. Not with that attitude. The other challenge is, and I mentioned.

this at the outset that like, you know, a lot of the pain from the tariffs still hasn't hit because these big companies have been absorbing the costs like these retailers. And they're all saying, or a lot of them are saying, that like come January, February, they're going to finally increase prices. So just as Trump and the administration are starting to hope that, you know, inflation hits the Fed's target and things start to settle down and people start to feel the effect of the tax cuts come April when they get their return, like retailers are going to, you know, the tariffs that still exist, retailers are going to start raising the prices. Yeah, it's also, look, there's so many ways in which this is unfair.

You know, we say tariffs as a shorthand, but like, why are farmers struggling? Like, it's the higher cost for inputs that they need. It's the trade war itself, making it so they can't sell what they're growing around the world. How do you measure that? How do you measure the cost of someone? not being able to sell some of their income going down. That's not, that's not the, they're not paying a tariff on something they can't sell. So it all ends up being a bailout that, yes, goes to the, the, the wealthiest companies.

But more broadly, there are plenty of people that are deserving of relief in the same way these farmers are deserving of relief that will receive nothing. They're people whose businesses have been decimated by Trump's haphazard and chaotic tariff policies. And they're not getting a dime from him. you you heartened by the bold executive order on price fixing um like it's not a bad idea i mean it's a bad well do something about it like i don't think we need a blue ribbon commission like the ag industry is unbelievably consolidated there's like four companies they control 85% of the

beef market 70% of pork half the poultry industry but i have zero confidence that john trump will go after any of these companies because they are big fans of republicans and are probably pouring money into his ballroom and his coffers. And, you know, it's just, like, great. Announce a blue ribbon commission that'll give us a report in six months and then you'll do what. Yeah, it reminds me of whenever gas prices

would go through the roof. Chuck Schumer would do like a Sunday press conference in front of a gas station being like, we've got to stop this gouging. Yeah. Yeah. I got a bill. As long as I've been alive and in politics,

I've never noticed any kind of gouging actually be taken care of by a political policy. No. I'm also, I'm excited in this speech to see the deliotechial. between the prepared remarks and what he actually says. You know, because, you know, he's got smart people in there. They know that they need to, like, he needs to be like, I feel your pain.

I'm listening. I'm going to do something about it. We owe you more. But his instinct is going to be, stop your bitching. I gave you the best economy in the world. This is a hoax. Prices are down. Remember eggs?

All you guys are talking about is eggs. You know, how about your eggs now? And, like, I think we're just going to hear all these demands for credit and repetition and accomplishment. It's going to sound like Joe Biden, y'all about all. Accus, you know? Yeah. Maybe he'll be yelling about Ocas. Maybe Trump will. Whatever he says, it seems like we're going to be hearing this for a whole year. Good luck. Susie Wiles was on some MAGA podcast today that I couldn't quite recognize.

And she said that they're going to flip the script in this midterm. And they're putting, she's putting Trump on the ballot. She's usually the president, they don't want to put the president on the ballot, but she's putting Trump on the ballot. And that he's going to, she wants them to campaign in 2026, quote, like it's 2024 again. okay cool oh she's on pod force one the uh the one that's like the new york post well oh there was something there's maga moms too she was on that okay good for her oh no i'm sorry this was july 10 yeah yeah it was something but not but not katie miller not katie miller not the heggsets were on that and she got the big a big Elon interview it's got the big oh she did i well i saw it previewed but i didn't actually watch it because she is anyway

we're doing promo for her we're doing why we're doing that um one thing trump and republicans of Congress likely won't be doing anything about the massive premium hikes that are set to hit in a few weeks for more than 20 million Americans who buy health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. John Thune is keeping the promise he made as part of the deal to end the

government shutdown and will give Democrats a vote this Thursday on a three-year extension of the ACA subsidies. We did it. Yeah, we did it. We did it. Got that vote. Republicans will be voting no, however. But they also can't seem to agree on any

kind of alternative. Some have proposed a two-year extension with new income limits. This is a proposal by Bernie Moreno and Susan Collins. Others, I believe, Bill Cassidy, and someone else whose name I can't remember right now, have proposed... Crapo. Crapo. Crapo. There's Crapo and the other C-word from that state. Not Craig with the... Remember Larry Craig? Yeah, no, not him. It was Creepo. Yeah. With the foot tapping. That was... Wide stance. Just...

Wide stance. Man, remember, there was always rumors about that guy, and then there were stories about him doing that. And then all of a sudden it was reported. You know what? It was wild. You have to poop one time. Standing over this poor beleaguered wife at that press conference,

that poor wife standing by the side of the press conference. None of this is true. If you go... It's a conspiracy to stop me, America's greatest legislator. Larry Craig of Idaho. If you're too young or offline to know we're talking about just ask chat GPT,

They'll let you know about Larry Craig. Maybe they'll also tell you about the proposal by Crapo. And Crapo? Crapo. I just say Crapo. It's so funny. It's always, you want to say Crapo. You want it to be Crapo.

If he ended up being like a real figure that piss people off, you'd be called Crapo. Trump would call him Crapo. But no one even cares. I thought you were doing a blue sky joke. Anyway, their proposal is no extension. And all they're going to do is give people below 700% of the poverty line. a thousand bucks in a tax-free savings account. So crazy.

But all of this is sort of moot since Senate Republicans reportedly won't be, as of this recording at least, coalescing behind a single alternative. It doesn't seem like House Republicans are doing much of anything. I think the House Republican Problem Solver Caucus is probably working with Democrats on something that won't go anywhere, but just it doesn't seem like anything's happening. And this is also probably the last week to do anything before January 1st, since everyone's, you know, leaving for the holidays, and that's that. So on the Moreno Collins' two-year extension with limits, that is similar to what the White House,

remember they were about to announce that a couple of weeks ago, and then they backed off because Republicans got nervous. Why do you guys think that Trump and Republicans couldn't get their shit together on a single alternative so that at the very least, when Susie Wiles was making Donald Trump campaign, like it's 2024, he and other Republican candidates have something. to tell people that they tried on health care. So here's what's confusing to me about this. So John Kennedy from Louisiana,

who always is good for a great quote, said this, Politico. Have you ever heard of a Rorschach test? Let's smear it all over the wall. That's where the negotiations are at internally among the Republicans. So what's going on in the House makes sense, which is there's a small number. Nothing. Which is nothing.

Yeah, that makes sense. Because there's a number of Republicans, I think, that would vote for some sort of compromise. extension to try to save their seats, but the vast majority of House Republicans don't want to do that, which means we're in a situation that doesn't look that different from previous votes like this. There's a majority that would pass an extension, but if Johnson allows that vote to take place, he will lose the speakership. He can only lose two or three at this point. So that makes sense. In the Senate, I actually don't understand what's happening because there is this compromise

proposal that, given it already has two Republicans on board would have a majority. in the Senate. And I don't see why a bunch of them don't just get on board and send it over to die in the House. Because they're going. But so I do think it's a genuine, like, ideological objection to the extensions. And it's because they fucked up. Because if they had put in place limits on the extensions and allowed those extensions to go forward, they would have made Obamacare more conservative. They would have been able to put in place a bunch of reforms. What they've done is allow it to lapse. And so anything they do is reviving the subsidies that currently will not exist on January 1st. And a lot of them that just don't want to do that. And so, you know,

Rick Scott is also somebody that's been in favor of just doing these, this sort of money in people's pockets for health care, which doesn't do anything to resolve the problem, which is if you don't have a health insurance and you have a medical event, you will go bankrupt. That's why people need insurance. So I don't understand what's happening in the Senate because they would obviously be benefit they would they would be served politically by just sending something to the house yeah I mean the health savings account plans would not only not solve the problem for most people it would make the problem much much worse because healthy young people would just not get health insurance they would spend down the HSAs whenever they needed health care and then premiums would

go up for everyone else and the the ACA would go into a death spiral I asked a Republican who worked on the Hill and health care a bunch and said like why isn't it an alternative and this person said either they don't care about health care and give no thoughts to policy or they They live in 2014 when just being against the ACA is all they know to say on the issue. And that sounded about right to me because there's like a couple dozen Republicans in swing districts. They are completely freaked out. They know they're going to lose. Tony Fabrizio said they'd be down 15 points if they fail to extend these tax credits and they're likely to lose their seats.

But the rest of them are in crazy gerrymandered seats or safe states. And they just don't want to vote for Obama anything for ideological reasons or for, you know, policy reasons. And Trump was asked about it today and he tried to do like a Luigi Mangione. impression. He was like, Democrats are in the pocket of the health insurance industry. What are he talking about, dude? And then he seemed to endorse an HSA plan, but he still doesn't have his own. Yeah, they're trying to say that because technically the expanded subsidies go to the insurance companies that somehow it's making the insurance companies richer, which is them not realizing that people can easily just look up the fact that the money is

paid to the insurance companies, and then they are required by law to pass the savings onto the consumer. That's the whole point of the subsidies. Also, change them. If you have a problem with how lucrative they are for the insurance companies, you have the ability to legislate anything you want to extend the subsidies to address your concerns. But it's really, it's just a pass through through the insurance companies. It's not a, it's nothing else. They have a problem. Right, they claim to have a problem with the fact there's a lot of people that sign up for Obamacare and never use it over the course of the year. There's a lot of, like, they have genuine ideological and policy questions.

There are people that actually think about health care on the Republican side. They're just not willing to actually put anything forward because they just have never in 20 years of talking about health care aligned on any kind of a vision. I imagine that the Collins Moreno proposal is one for, I mean, Collins is the only one in a truly vulnerable seat right now who's a Senate Republican. I mean, you could also say that. I was like close enough. Yeah, like the guy that's running against Sherrod,

whatever his face is. Hurstead, something. He's, John Hurstead, who knows? He's, he'll probably say he's for that. Hustead. Hustead. Huston. You could be pretty good.

Hey, pretty good. So, you know, you can imagine the people in vulnerable seats in the House too, saying they were for two-year extension and the Democrats just wanted to give the subsidies to rich people. You know, they could run a campaign like that. But I do think Republicans control the White House and Congress, And most voters would say, well, gee, since you controlled everything, why didn't you make your little plan happen if you controlled everything? Senator Josh Hawley, he said to Burgess Everett, reporter at Semaphore today, Republicans had better offer something.

I mean, what signal will it send if Republicans say, we're going to say no to the Democrats plan, but we're not going to offer anything. The message that will send is good luck to the American people. We don't really care. And Holly said he wouldn't even a rule out voting for the three-year extension on Thursday. I had a question about this. I wonder if you thought about this, which is, I'm glad we got a discharge position through on the Epstein files, which is obviously making a difference for everybody this Christmas. But presumably there are a majority of House members that would sign on to an extension,

maybe an extension with some kind of caps, some version of the Senate proposal. Like, make them decide not to support that because you'd instantly get every Democrat to sign some kind of a compromise. Yeah, they tried, apparently. And, like, you know, even the Don Bacon's of the House where, like, we're not signing a discharge petition on the three-year extension. We will come up with our own bipartisan compromise. Right, but do one of these, like, let's get, like, I think it's out there. It's happening. Because they're trying to work in some politically damaging things, like, you know, it has to cut funding for states that provide health care to undocumented people or, like, further reductions in payments and payments for abortion services.

Like, they just want to make it politically painful. Yeah, Hyde Amendment stuff. They wanted to include in that. Yeah, but like, man, yeah. But I agree with you. I mean, it's the obvious smart thing for them to do. It's, I mean, I think that they are, this is one of the stupider fucking moves from the public. I mean, aside from being awful on policy and hating that, like, it's just politically a real head scratcher because I think they feel maybe they've avoided the pain so far, but the pain hasn't really hit yet.

And when they're campaigning and health care premiums are up and the tariffs are still there and big companies are really. raising costs again, like, I don't think it's getting better for them. No. No. And this is their voters, too. Yeah. Pod Save America is brought to by Helix. You know, it's getting colder, and sometimes people like to spend a little more time cozyed up in the bedroom,

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our show name into the post purchase survey so they know we sent you. Helixleep.com slash crooked. Monday also brought more exciting news in the war over which mega corporation will achieve total control of the entertainment industry. Hell yeah. You probably saw that Netflix has, at least for now, won the bidding war for Warner Brothers Discovery, agreeing to pay $72 billion in a deal that would give them the Warner Brothers half of the company, which includes the TV and movie studios, as well as HBO Max. The Discovery half, which includes CNN and other cable networks, would split off.

on its own, though they could always go after that half later. But none of this is final on Monday. David Ellison's Paramount Skydance, which recently absorbed what's left of CBS and CBS News, was reportedly preparing to launch a hostile takeover bid for Warner Brothers Discovery. Ellison, whose father Larry is the billionaire founder of Oracle and friends with Trump, called the Netflix offer, quote, inferior, and told CNBC on Monday, quote, we're really here to finish what we started. Love it, people are going to hear your interview with Bloomberg's,

Lucas Shaw on this in a bit, but any headlines from that that we should know about? Hollywood is pretty freaked out. The Ellisons are pissed, but could put together more money, and Trump has a lot of power. And Paramount is bringing some pals along in the, if they go forward with the latest bid. They're making the offer along with sovereign wealth funds from Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, and of course, no gang of Gulf autocrats trying to curry favor with Trump would be complete without the involvement of the man who was the president's second choice

to marry Ivanka after Tom Brady Jared Kushner. He's like a chaperone. Jared's private equity firm, Affinity Partners, going in on the bid could help grease the wheels with regulators, especially because the Trump administration has already indicated. It views the Netflix offer with, quote, heavy skepticism, but because

Trump is also a messy bitch who loves drama, he posted a statement on Monday that was quite critical of Paramount for allowing CBS News's 60 Minutes to air an interview with Marjorie Taylor Green in which she dared to criticize Trump. Quote, from the truth, my real problem was that

the new ownership of 60 Minutes, Paramount, would allow a show like this to air. All caps, they 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.

Tough review for Barry Weiss. I wonder if there's a lesson there for anybody else. And here's Trump fielding a question on the deal during his White House event on Monday. You spoke about Netflix last night saying you have concerns about them. I know the company's very well. I know what they're doing, but I have to see. I have to see what percentage of market they have.

I mean, none of them are particularly great friends in mind. Paramount is supported by Jared Kushner, Mr. President. Would that impact your decision? If Paramount is, I don't know, I've never spoken to him. He's really trying to work on Gaza. I think Gaza's his primary thing is Gaza. Tommy, do you think this deal is this hostile takeover bid could work now that the man who negotiated the Abraham Accords is on the case? Yeah, first of all, way to bribe them there, CBS.

You guys nailed that. Also, the lighting there was so bad. Very yellowy, golden dome. I mean, Jared's participation is pure, uncut corruption. Like, the paramount is just like, okay, let's bring this idiot. Maybe he can grease it from the inside. Maybe he can make this deal happen. And remember that the money Jared is investing.

is almost entirely from investment funds controlled by the Saudis, the Emirates, the Qatar. I think it's 99% of the like $5 billion in assets yet. So he is a middleman with zero experience in like streaming or studios. It's just political ties and corruption. And, you know, you have to ask like, okay, at the same time. So the Saudi Emirati and Qatari sovereign wealth funds have put up $24 billion to help finance this deal. So those sovereign wealth funds paid Jared. So they're paying him a fee to be part.

of an investment that they're also a part of on their own. Very interesting. Nice work if you get it. Great business. Also, the sovereign wealth funds have agreed to have no say in the governance of the future companies. So no board seats, no voting rights, presumably to get around the national security process that could block the deal, the Sifias process. So you have to wonder, like, why are these guys excited to be part of a deal that this merger, where they're wildly overpaying for assets to create a company they can't control? And like, I think it's about control. Right? It's like changing the cultural conversation. I think they just love journalism.

Yeah, they love cinema. It's about, you know, like washing their reputation. I mean, the whole thing is just pretty gross. Yeah, so we don't even, I talk to Lucas about this a little bit. And actually, it's, we don't totally understand their motivation, right? Because they do claim to be giving up control. They do like the idea of diversifying into these other areas at the same time. Like, because it's such a big Netflix, there's so many pieces to this,

CNN is at stake in this as well. Netflix has said they don't want the cable business so that Discovery Global would spin off. Elson has said he would want it. He would keep it and would make CNN and CBS a kind of Barry Weiss Gundam that she would control probably.

Now I asked actually Lucas about this about would Ellison acquire CNN anyway if Netflix spun it off? And he actually thought he might be didn't actually think that anybody, that the cable business is something you get if you do this deal, but nobody would want it independently, which may be a possibility. It does seem like, first of all, we should talk about, like, the power Trump has to stop this deal, because it's not as clear cut as I thought, at least, when I first started reading about it,

because first of all, the FCC has no role here because there's not, like, local television stations at stake, DOJ. And so it's DOJ. DoJ could ask a judge for a new. injunction. So they could maybe delay it for a couple months, but then the judge would have to grant the injunction. So they can try to block it, but it's not completely in the hands of Trump's DOJ. I do

think he is playing coy and like, you know, maybe it's a maybe it's too much market share for Netflix, but also Ted Serendos is fantastic. And also, I might be pissed at Paramount because 60 minutes and Barry Weiss aren't. Yeah, it's leverage. And if this takes what are, 18 months to close,

you know, that's like a good part of the to Trump's term and he can have all these companies, all three of these companies just kissing his ass and giving him all the content, all the rush hour movies he wants. He's already got Rush Hour four coming out now. He's got another cameo in a Batman movie. He's coming his way. But not a home alone. Oh, yeah, I was sorry. Right. Yeah. So he doesn't have the ability to, he doesn't have the singular ability to stop it, but he does have the ability to approve it. I do think also all this, you know, him sort of going after Paramount today is. is a way of saying for the next 18 months,

everybody better be so nice to me. It's my birthday. It's my birthday until one of these deals is approved. Yeah, I talked about this with Lucas as well. Like I've seen a bunch of people come out against these deals and I understand why and people have genuine concerns about what this consolidation would mean. But I also do wonder what happens if people come up

with what they'd want Trump, you know, Trump claims he wants to save Hollywood, right? comes to like, I'm going to be the guy that saves Hollywood. Well, if Trump wants to be the savior of Hollywood, there's billions and billions of dollars Netflix has put on the table if this deal gets stopped, right? That's leverage Trump has to make all kinds of demands, even though in any other administration wouldn't happen that way. Are you guys rooting for Netflix because Sarandos isn't as tight with Trump as the Ellisons, or is it still just, I mean, Netflix controlling Warner Brothers, that is a, that is a big market share right there.

Yeah, I think it's complicated. I think the best outcome is no merger at all. But there are political equities and there's like business and Hollywood equities. I think for a political perspective, I'm not excited about Paramount because you don't want like a Trump-aligned billionaire and his annoying kid having an even larger amount of market share in power in Hollywood. Antitrust advocates might say, though, that a supersized paramount could create a streaming competitor to Netflix that might be a good thing for consumers or for Hollywood if, you know, trying to get more buyers out there in the market who would make TV and film. The pushback to that, though, is like, I don't know, even if a deal goes through, like, no matter what, there's one less buyer. and that's not a good thing for people selling stuff. And then if Netflix wins, like, there are a lot of potential downsides. It gives them a huge chunk of the streaming business.

Paramount says it's 40%. I don't know how to vet that. But, like, they're the number one and number three biggest streamers. It means one less buyer in the market making stuff. It could kill the movie theater business because Netflix wants to get movies onto its streaming platform faster. And that could drastically shorten theatrical release times. And then there's just a question of like, okay, so how is Netflix going to pay for this? Like, what costs are they going to cut?

Are they going to fire people? Are they going to shut down lots? Are they going to raise prices? There was one analyst who said, where's my numbers? There's one analyst estimated that the deal needs to increase Netflix's cash flow by $8 billion per year for the next 20 years to justify itself. That's a lot of money. And then there's like a third theory out there that just like actually Netflix doesn't really care if they close the deal. They just want to freeze Warner Brothers discovery for 18 to 24 months while the process goes on and keep them from getting sold elsewhere.

and then just like press their advantage in streaming. Who knows if that's true, but it's an interesting theory. Yeah, the other side of it, though, is according to the proposals, there's even more cuts if Warner Brothers and Paramount merge, because those companies have more overlap. Totally. There's this idea that Netflix is the death of movie theaters. Maybe it is, but when Fox and Disney acquired 20th,

there were 44% fewer releases. because there's just one less studio, and those are both companies that believe in the movie business. And I do worry about what happens if CNN comes under the control of a Trump loyal family. It's one less independent media company.

So I don't think there's really any great outcomes in either acquisition. I guess the hope would be that this gets dragged out, the Netflix deal gets killed, and somehow in the interim, the Paramount deal falls apart too. But if right now, I think people are being a little too cavalier

about saying the Netflix deal should be stopped without accepting that the downwind consequence of that is the paramount one happens and there's a ton of bad outcomes for that too. I will say one of the arguments Netflix is making is that their real competition is not with just other streamers but TikTok, YouTube. And it is a bleak argument

that may or may not be true, but like the idea that they see themselves, at least as competing for eyeballs with all the wonderful stuff that we see on TikTok. I mean, they're absolutely right. And they are. And it's just like that is, that is. And it tells you something about the future of where they want to go. I think it's like I do think that all entertainment is losing like time and mindshare to TikTok, you know, mostly TikTok.

But the idea that that doesn't make it like a monopoly issue is absurd. No, it's just, I, yeah, no, for sure. I was raising it because some of the Netflix shows you see look like just a couple TikToks strung together. Well, look, I think the TikTok argument is a little bit of a stretch. I don't think it's unfair to say that they're competing with YouTube. They are competing with YouTube. And also, by the way, YouTube spends a ton of money on original content now. It's not prestige scripted television.

Like, there's a way in which I feel like a lot of people that are really worried about this and are rightly worried about this. I always feel like we're just sort of following behind these sort of inexorable changes and complaining about them and also not really dealing with like what I do think are complexities, which is these companies do spend huge amounts on original content. And I want movie theaters to survive, but then you look at the numbers and the entire movie business this year is maybe going to be $9 billion, the domestic box office. And it is dwarfed by the amount of money. Like Apple, Apple alone is going to spend what, like almost $5 billion on content? this year. Netflix is around 17 or 18. YouTube is 30 billion dollars. They're spending huge amounts of money and making incredible television shows that we would say are some of the best television shows ever made. So I guess I would like to, I feel like the conversation needs to

turn to what does it look like to put pressure on these companies and maybe put pressure on a deal like this to get to a better version of where we're heading as opposed to constantly having a conversation about the dangers of consolidation and of Silicon Valley's invasion of Hollywood. Aura Frames makes it look like you planned it all along. Every frame comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag, so there is no gift wrapping necessary. You can even preload photos before it ships and keep adding from anywhere any time.

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Orra's best-selling carver mat frames, named number one by wirecutter by using promo code cricket at checkout. That's A-U-R-A-Frames.com promo code Cricket. This deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast. So order yours now to get it in time for the holidays. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. While we're talking about the economy, business, and regulations, it's worth touching on the latest in artificial intelligence with a post on truth social Monday morning. Trump promised to sign an executive order this week that would attempt to sweep away any state regulations that try to guardrail AI.

Here's some of what Trump wrote. There must be only one rulebook if we are going to continue to lead an AI. There can be no doubt about this. AI will be destroyed in its infancy. You can't expect a company to get 50 approvals. every time they want to do something, that will never work. What do you guys think? Do you think there's anything else behind Trump not wanting states to pass any AI regulations?

Yeah, I just think all these AI companies are racing as fast as they can to build the most powerful product. And they believe that this is going to be, if not a winner takes all, a winner takes most industry. And the difference between being like number one and number two will be trillions of dollars. So they are trying to compete. They're trying to train models. They're trying to buy all the chips. They're competing for power, like literally like physical power. from, you know, electricity, and they're spending billions of dollars, so the stakes are so high,

and they just don't want any guardrails in the way, and they're, and they want the status quo, and I think they're willing to pay for it. Like, they're paying off the Trump administration. And, you know, you have AI safety experts pointing out that restaurants now face more regulations and safety standards than AI companies, and the companies involved don't care, right? Like Sam Altman doesn't care. Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, they don't care. And so they know that Washington is broken. Congress won't get anything done. And that often the way regulation gets done in this country is California passes a law. And then that becomes the de facto standard because we're so big that other, you know, every company follows it. And Trump is pretending that this executive

order will preempt to that. I don't think it's going to work in any way in practice. But these companies are all kissing his ass and pouring political favors in his pocket and showing up at the White House all the time and going to dinners and, you know, paying off to build the ballroom and whatever. And I think that's why he's doing this. Yeah, I think though the only positive in it is hoping that the reason he's doing this is because it looks like the hopes for passing something through Congress are falling apart. And the people were really worried about that. And a provision was going to get snuck into this must pass defense bill because Congress is barely able to govern. If that barely is generous, they end up sticking really important

random bills attached to must-fast bills, like a defense, a military bill. So if that has fallen out, they're doing this as a cope. And to Tommy's point, yeah, won't have nearly the same impact, if any impact. So it seems like he's doing it as a favor hit to his pals. And while there are also people who genuinely believe that we are in a race against China and anything that limits America's sort of rapacious building of server farms and data centers and, you know, power plans to support them will mean we don't create the singular AI god before China does, at which point we'll all work for the Chinese version. Yeah, these people all paid for access, right?

And they've got their access. They're their best buddies with Trump now. And I think persuading him on this is quite easy and his staff. I think they sit down with them and they say, okay, look at the economy right now. We have an economy that's built on data centers and private prisons. Nothing else is really good. And health care, I guess. The health care sector is growing.

Nothing else is growing. And so if you want to be a successful president, you want the economy to continue to chug along as it is, you're going to have to support AI as fast as possible. Then there's the beat China thing. There's also the, by the way, you don't want, and Trump has said this in truth posts before. You don't want these blue states like California. You don't want this commie California to develop some woke AI that we're going to have to contend with, right? Now, the challenge is a whole bunch of states have already started passing regulations on AI around political deep fakes, non-consensual sexual imagery. They have passed regulations to try to prevent AI from being used to discriminate.

But it is a complete fake order. it doesn't do anything. What's going to happen is if a state has a regulation that the Trump administration doesn't like, the Trump administration can then decide through the DOJ to try to sue the state and see if that works. They'll probably say it's, you know, interstate commerce clause that the feds are supposed to be able to regulate interstate commerce. The challenge is they're going to make the argument that like we need one federal set of regulations on AI because you can't have a patchwork set of like 50 different regulations, but they don't have a federal set of regulations. So it's hard to tell the states you can't do anything until maybe someday we do

something in the federal government. Like it's one thing to say the federal regulation takes precedent over the state regulation. You like you have a good league, maybe a good legal argument there. I don't know that you do by saying, we're getting around to it, but in the meantime, you can't do anything. It's not like it's like the health care vote. They are, they want to veto any legislative effort they don't agree with or that restricts these abilities company to operate across different states, but they just don't have a policy that they can coalesce around to regulate AI in the way that it obviously needs to be regulated. So they just are, they are of their, they can't do it.

They don't, they cannot govern. They cannot put together a proposal, uh, to pass something. So they're going to do this instead. You're right. I mean, this stock market is entirely propped up by AI. And he has a huge incentive to keep that bubble from bursting because it would be catastrophic. I do think also the crypto example is very instructive. Like Donald Trump hated cryptocurrency until a bunch of crypto executive.

came to him and they dumped money on him and created super PACs and all of a sudden now he loves it. He also hated Big Tech until they kind of bowed to the altar now he's a fan. So I just think the China thing is just such bullshit. Maybe is today Trump advanced that he will allow the sale of the H-200 Nvidia chip to China, which is like they're just below their Blackwell series. It's like the best of the last generation ships, a very powerful chips. And so we're going to send like our second best chips. We're going to get rid of export controls on AI chips because we want to beat China. That makes absolutely no sense. And when you push them on that, it'll be like, well, if we don't give them our chips, they're going to make chips through Huawei. You guys don't

think that they're going to subsidize their biggest tech company anyway? I just like don't find it at all believable. It's a very weird argument. Basically the argument is we want to get them hooked on American technology. Right. So that they're dependent on the Nvidia chips. But it's also unclear whether China will actually say yes and buy the chips because they might think that it's like a backdoor security risk, in which case, what is the, what is the purpose of this whole thing? It's like if they buy them, then, but they're also subsidizing Huawei, like, then how are we getting them hooked on Nvidia technology? And the Chinese can be like, you know what we're going to do? We're going to buy Taiwan with these warships. That's what we're going to do. That's our policy.

It's a David Sachs brainchild, right? And the other argument they're making is like, well, by, By allowing NVIDIA to sell some of these to China, it'll just make NVIDIA more money. And if NVIDIA has more money, they'll be able to help the United States beat China to the AI super god. Again, we don't, we don't know what we're racing towards is the other thing? And by the way, I don't. Is it AGI, right, artificial general intelligence or, but there's no specific goal here. We're just racing. How many fucking dogs do you attach to the bobsled before it goes to speed of sound?

It's like, I like, I'm really, I'm really, it's like a terrifying thing what's happening. And maybe like the idea that they all have like, there's like genuine like old school kind of competition going on trying to make the best product and get there first. And that we have seen over the years that in like technology, there are all these economies where one wins in the rest fall, Google, there's other examples. But then it's like, so you're all racing because you have to get there first. There is some sort of super intelligence that that you don't understand and that will be smarter than us. And then, oh, by the way, we've spent the last decade building how many

fucking data centers and server farms that are going to, that are currently inflated value that they all are pretending have more value than they do because the things burn out and they have to replace them. It's like the, the like awareness of the bubble as we're in the bubble is very reminiscent of several previous terrible financial catastrophes that we've very recently been through. It is notable that a lot of the opposition to sort of the AI industry going at breakneck speed and specifically Trump's move today is coming from some people in his base, prominent people. Marjorie Taylor Green. This is one place where she diverged from Trump. Ron DeSantis has been leading the opposition to this move as well. He was out today with a statement critical of Trump's

EO. What do you think? Is this like another sort of wedge issue with Trump's base that Democrats should be taking advantage of here and maybe building new coalitions? I think so. I mean, look, I think he's a fake populist and we should hammer him for it. And it's this issue. I mean, it's tech companies showering him with money and compliments and they get what they want. The president of Argentina kisses Trump's ass at T-PAC. They got a $40 billion bailout.

The crypto assholes get their special favors and policies. Like, what was it the crypto-national reserve? Remember that moment? Whatever happened to that? Yeah, I don't know. Hey, somebody follow up on the crypto-national reserve. How are we doing? How are we doing?

How much is in the reservoir? are. We're pardoning all the people who's crypto we were going to seize. Cuts Medicaid does nothing when health care prices go up as we talked about a minute ago. I mean, so yeah, like I do think this is like a piece of the puzzle of just how rather than drain the swamp, it is just a, Washington is more bought and sold than ever. And you're hearing this case being made by conserved. Like, you know, Nick Fuentes was just unloading on Trump on all these grounds too. So it's coming from the left and the right. And I think it's a case worth making. I think it's also it's corruption is a piece of it. I think. for AI, it goes like well beyond that as well. I mean, it is the DeSantis, Marjorie Taylor Green have voice concerns about the job loss. I mean, you've heard, you know, Tucker Carlson has had this debate with like Ben Shapiro like a year ago or something where I think Tucker said, you know, he would, if you could stop, we're going to have these driverless cars. And if you could have a regulation stopping the creation of driverless cars because it's going to get rid of all the truckers and then all the trucking jobs in this country he would do it and so there's going to be this

massive potential job displacement that a lot of folks on the right in a more sort of protectionist way are going to say like they don't like there is like what it's going to do to our kids it's sort of the social media phone argument on steroids so you get a lot of some of the more religious conservatives concerned about that so there are a host of reasons beyond just corruption that like the republican base or the maga base is like really worried about when comes to AI. And the polling bears this out as well. Like, you know, Harvard just did their big youth poll. And for among young people, only 14% said that AI will create more opportunities and 44% said that it will take away more opportunities. That's young people. We're usually, you know,

kind of enamored with new technology. Emerson just did a poll in Pennsylvania. 48% of voters think that AI will have a negative impact on the economy. Only 25% said positive. 55% of people in Pennsylvania believe that AI will decrease jobs in the industry they work in, personal, a thing. And then only 16% that increase. And then there's a big huge pupil from the summer. AI will worsen our ability to think creatively. 53% believe that. Only 16% disagree.

And form meaningful relationships. 50% agree with that. Only 5% disagree. One challenge is how many different kinds of technology AI represents because it is both something that will drive. cars. It is something that will replace writers. There's so many implications of it, some of which are awesome and great that we should be very much excited about. Some of which are... Biomedical sphere specifically, I think. Some of which are great tools for artists to use in ways that help their productivity. Some are purely parasitic. And some that can only exist

because they are drafting off of stolen art or using art to kind of replicate what an artist might do in a world where this technology didn't exist, friends, all of this stuff, like has all these sort of negative consequences, but we're not, like, because Trump is in the pocket of these industries, there's so many ways in which we're not having those debates, and there's no hope of any kind of real, like, reforms or regulations to rein that in. Like, they've already trolled and stolen so much information to make their database of, of, of language to turn around super Google. it's totally unsettling. I mean, parents are also just watching their kids use AI to cheat at school all day, and they're not learning anything. And like, meanwhile, Australia is banning social media for kids under 16. And we're letting the same companies run by the same assholes figure out AGI. Like, this is a terrible setup. Everyone, you don't really have to explain that to a lot of people. And it's, it's going to happen so much faster than any other technological development. I think that is one of the big differences here. I mean, it's, it is more powerful than past technological developments, but that's usually the case. But just the speed. Like, we're all like, oh, well, Trump.

here now. Maybe we can figure this out, you know, in 2028. Like, it's happening, like you said, the stuff is being stolen right now. The technology is being developed right now. It's all happening. The other thing, too, is all these sort of costs that are not being incurred by these companies that are being incurred by people who never signed up for them. Like, I saw a teacher being interviewed talking about how a big part of a teacher's job now is trying to figure out if AI wrote something. And a student will generate an essay in 10 seconds that will take hours for the teacher's job. that teacher to untangle. They didn't train to figure out what AI is. You know what the

proposed solution for that is. Develop an AI that can help tell you whether the college essay was written by AI. That's seriously what they... It exists. Yeah. One thing for sure is that whatever happens, we would never want some comie blue state to pass any kind of regulation that would deprive

our right-wing influencers from using AI to anthropomorphize dead presidents for the sake of content. As Glenn Beck has apparently done with George Washington, guys. Let's listen. If I may, speak plainly. My countrymen, the danger, the greatest danger to our republic lies not in foreign arms or political faction, but in the decay. May I just interrupt you for a second. Could you just dumb it down just a little bit? Okay. Let me speak to Americans.

If I'm honest, America's biggest problem is in political or economic. It's all moral. You know, where are the citizens who value duty over comfort, principle over popularity? America was built to be a moral and self-governing nation. So are you guys more or less worried about AI after that? Yeah, Sify. That's George Washington with some testosterone gel who's like a big fan of like looks maxing. Why am I wearing the same shirt as George Washington? Why is George Washington wearing the same shirt as you?

Yeah, he's got sick hair, he's got a nice flow. Good bill. Well, it's interesting that George Washington, they made him talk, talk. like we do today, but they didn't fix the hair. The hair is still this old... He looks like an oompa, is what he looks like. He does look like a nupa. A nupalupa that sounds suspiciously like Glenn Beck. You know, this is like, this is AI. It's like, this is what I mean. It's like, it can drive a car. It can find new molecules to cure diseases. It also functionally is the same as brainy quotes.net because you can just make it say, like,

it's like, you know, reach for the stars, Gandhi. You know, like that's what this is. Just somebody putting their own, it's like, like, We can make a face of George Washington saying whenever we want, exciting. He left the Blaze, I think was his publication, to do this full-time, I think, this AI-George. This is his job. Yeah, George just got nominated for Golden Globe. So that's exciting. It really worked those refs.

And just so everyone knows, Glenn Beck has put that out as the preview, the full conversation. There's a full conversation that is not out yet, at least as of this recording. And a pretty intimate sex scene with Martha, which is exciting. Just like couldn't be less compelling, whatever that was. Also, like him having to, it's not like he just throws AI George Washington up on the screen and lets him go. Like, he's interviewing him. It's like, no, no, no, slow down, slow down. And also, speak like today.

Come on, dumb it down for us, AI, George. What else will he have him do? It was just funny, you generate an AI, George Washington. He's like, I will not proceed with this interview for even a moment longer until you let me see one of your magic dentists. Please help me. Please help me. I have oak teeth. I haven't had a good night's sleep in several years.

And I still have slaves at home. Yeah. Yeah. And I do have those slaves. This is my thing. Anyway, stuff like that makes you like, okay, maybe we shouldn't worry about AI killing us all because it's doing that. But I do think that's deceiving because so many people like their first encounter with AI is slop garbage like that. And they're like, yeah, maybe it's not so bad.

But like, meanwhile, like you said, there's a lot of other things going on. with AI that are a lot scarier than that. Yeah, can I make one pitch on how we talk about this? Because I do this too. Everyone does this. AI will not be the thing that destroys our jobs or takes over our economy. It will be the people that own the company. It is a tool.

It is not a person. It is a tool. And it's a very powerful tool. It's a tool that can displace whole parts of, whole jobs and industries. And it's being created by very powerful tools. Very powerful tools are in fact in charge. So there's this way in which we feel like kind of, I don't know, like kind of a strap to this thing. And we can't stop.

it's like no no no like it is an important technology it will have great uses we decide that we have some say over it and we should like i think take more agency in a theoretical democracy for sure in a theoretical democracy but when we say a i is stealing the jobs there will be a person who presses the button who controls the company that makes the money those are the people who are taking the jobs yeah so glenbeck acquired a bunch of historical documents which he says he's now created a digital vault to put them on the blockchain to ensure that they're not tampered with who is tampering with historical documents. They're historical, yeah.

Aren't they in the public domain? Isn't that why they're historical documents? I think he's bothered by the fact that at the Library of Congress is now, it now says they, them hold these truths to be self-evident. And I think that was the part

that really drove him crazy. And if you want to take a book out, the librarian is Marco Rubio and so you have to get his permission. Right, and I think there's that part of the where it says, you know, that like Jefferson was checking his privilege towards the end of the Declaration of Independence

that George and King George III was not creating enough space. Look, Hamilton. So I think like, so I have to understand why that is confusing. But sorry, Glenn, that's what's always been there. He's so weird. All right. When we get back from the break, you'll hear Love is conversation with Bloomberg's Lucas Shaw about the battle for Warner Brothers, what it actually means for all of us.

Two announcements before we get to that. Big news, guys, for our listeners down under. We are bringing PODSAVE America live to New Zealand and Australia for the first time ever. Join us for the 2026 Pod Save America. hopefully just visiting tour I do like that name I want to give them any ideas over in the White House

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Go to cricket.com slash events to get tickets and use the code PSA down under to get pre-sale tickets now. How exciting is this guy? PSA down under. Yeah, PSA down under. Listen, I wanted PSA after dark, but you guys said no, we're married. PSA Dan under? Is that no?

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Dan's glad you got there too. He didn't hear it. Down under. Down Under. The newest also, this is another announcement. The newest book from Crooked Media Reeds is coming out January 27th, 2026. It's called Hated by All the Right People, Tucker Carlson, and the Unraveling of the Conservative Mind by one of our favorite political journalists, New York Times Magazine writer, Jason Zangerly. Why a book about Tucker Carlson?

Why not? In a lot of ways, Tucker's rise is what made the Trump age possible. He is an extremely influential figure on the right. and Jason's book gets inside, you know, what happened, how his rights came about it. It's an excellent book. It's so good. I've read it. It's a fantastic book.

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go to armor.com slash cricket or enter cricket to get 30% off your first subscription order. That's A-R-M-R-A.com slash cricket. Joining me now is managing editor of Bloomberg News and author of Bloomberg's Screen Time News and the reporter who broke the story of Netflix's successful bid to buy Warner Brothers. Lucas Shaw, welcome to the pot. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. So why is Netflix, which has never grown via acquisition before? for interested in buying Warner Brothers?

Two reasons. One offensive, one defensive. I think for offensive reasons, look, it's a great asset, right? It's got one of the great film and television studios, one that's been around for more than a century, shows that Netflix knows are popular already with its customers, like Friends, which used to be on Netflix, now on HBO Max, a bunch of movies. It's got HBO, which is a premium brand to which Netflix once aspired and has since sort of eclipsed. And so if it can buy that, feed it in, get all of these hit shows that it can offer to its customers, it makes its proposition much stronger. And then defensive, you know, it's got this new kid on the block, David Ellison,

and spending money like crazy because he's got it from his dad. And they, you know, they don't want, he's already swallowed Paramount and they don't want to risk him adding Warner Brothers as well. So it seems as though Paramount was caught off guard because they thought this was theirs to lose. Now Paramount is launching a hostile bid, but Paramount is a smaller company, forget Netflix, it's a smaller company than Warner Brothers. So this is only possible because Ellison has his fortune, plus there's cash from the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emirates, there's funds from Jared Kushner's investment firm, twice as much of the money, at least from the bid that we heard

about last week, comes from the Middle East, as comes from the Ellison's. The Ellison family, as well as this company, Redbird, which is a private equity firm, they would be the controlling shareholders, have a lot of the economic interests. But it was interesting on Monday morning where they issued one press release that didn't mention some of this other financing. And then in the filing that they had to put out, it did disclose. Look, I can't fully explain the thinking behind why kind of Middle Eastern Petro's, of states do what they do. They have been spreading their money around and investing in a kind of

diversifying beyond oil, trying to gain also, I think, soft power through investments in sports and media, right? There's a kind of a Saudi affiliated group that just bought or is the primary acquirer of electronic arts, the big video game publisher that makes Madden and other things. So I think they see an opportunity to, you know, buy an interesting, sexy asset that will hopefully make money for them in the long run and give them more influence. on a global stage. It also means that they're closely tied in business with the Ellison family, which is, you know, good people to be close to with the Cushner's. And, you know, if Trump blesses it, also gets them another sort of point of contact with the Trump administration.

So let's talk about that, whether Trump blesses it. It's been interesting seeing it taken as a given that Jared Cushner being associated with the Ellison bid is a sign that it would have a smoother path to approval, the like kind of acceptance of the fact that there is so much sort of interpersonal relationships and just old school corruption here. At the same time, the Ellisons have spent a year doing a fair amount of boot licking and then Trump is asked about this. He says, oh, we got to see, we got to see. It would be quite a shame for them to have spent a year doing all that sucking up and end up with nothing to show for it. Well, look, Allison's got something already from from larry ellis in the close relationship at the white house which is they got

paramount right they were they went after paramount very aggressively um and got the deal approved reasonably quickly all things considered um now i think you've got the president in a pretty good situation for him where he has two different companies both of which want to do this deal and even though he does not have the official power to say yay or nay, he obviously can have a tremendous amount of influence between his relationship with the DOJ and other regulatory agencies where, you know, Netflix is going to want to make sure that he's happy with their bid and the Ellisons who've already been very friendly to him in a lot of ways are going to do the same. So it positions him as something of a power broker, which he obviously likes. So in your own reporting,

You found that Sarandos had done a lot to work on his Trump relationship. Can you talk about that and how strategic that was in advance of this? Yeah, I mean, look, the Netflix, I think if you look at the management of the company, is one of the more democratic, by which I mean supportive of the Democratic Party, media companies, companies in the country, right? Reid Hastings, the co-founder, former CEO, has invested a lot of money, especially of late in political causes, has been a very vocal critic of President Trump. Ted Sarandos's wife, Nicole Levant, was an ambassador in the Obama administrations of Bahamas.

So obviously, as a result of that, I mean, the Obamas had a, I guess, continue to have a production deal with Netflix, and Sarandos is close to them. And my understanding is that when Trump came back into power in 2024, 25, Netflix looked around and said, we don't have a lot of relationships in his inner circle, and we need to fix that. We are one of the biggest and most influential media companies in the world. Netflix has done a really good job over the years of largely evading kind of intense regulatory scrutiny. Now that they are at the size that they are for that to continue, I think they couldn't be seen as sort of an enemy of the state, if you will, in the way that Trump is routinely

attacking NBC or Disney and ABC. Netflix doesn't want to be in that position. Ted Sarandos, the co-CEO of Netflix, who's kind of the more charming schmoozy of the two co-CEOs and the Hollywood one had a dinner at Mara Lago with President Trump last December, which was reported about at the time. It was a very long dinner. I think they, my understanding is they got along quite well at the dinner and had remained in touch since then texting, talking, meeting somewhat regularly, including most recently in kind of mid-November where Ted had a meeting of more than an hour with Trump at the White House. Now, keep in mind, they're not just talking about this deal, right? Donald Trump has been talking a lot about

tariffs on the film business that don't make a lot of sense that people in Hollywood want to influence in some way. There was some concern, I think, early in the administration that he might revisit the idea of net neutrality, which is something that Netflix has strong opinions about. And in the most recent meeting, obviously, they wanted to talk about this deal because Netflix was in the middle of what it knew would be a kind of a contentious process. Yeah, well, it's just, you know, you make the point that, you know, this ostensibly should be in the hands of regulators and there's a sort of a formal process and the president is not necessarily directly involved.

You know, Trump himself is saying it's up to him. And clearly the actors in this are very concerned of the ways in which he will get involved. So let's talk about what the administration could do. The head of the theater lobbying group called this an unprecedented threat to the global exhibition business. The WGA said the world's largest streaming company swallowing one of its biggest competitors is what antitrust laws were designed to prevent. Roy Price, who was the former head of Amazon Studios, said the long prophesized death of Hollywood may finally arrive. These are dire, dire warnings about this. What are you hearing about why this, why people are so much more concerned about this deal than if the parents are.

Paramount deal had gone through. So I actually don't think that that's the case. It's just Netflix won, right? Or won the initial auction. And so people came out strongly against Netflix. I think some of the same people that you mentioned, not all of them, would have been concerned about Paramount, right? I think the guilds, for example, WGA, DJ representing writers and directors, they don't like the idea of a studio going away, which could happen if Paramount won. I think you're probably, I think it's the theatrical business, the movie theaters, wouldn't be as worried about Paramount. because David Ellison has been very clear that he is a champion of movie theaters and wants to put movies in theaters, whereas Netflix has a long crack record of releasing movies straight to the internet and not wanting to have what long stretches of movies being exclusive to theaters. Now, Netflix is saying in this case that they will kind of run Warner Brothers as it has been, and that means putting movies in theaters, but a lot of folks just don't believe them. And then as for, as for, you know, you brought up Roy Price. you know, he used to run one of the biggest competitors to Netflix. And I think there's a lot of concern. And certainly the argument that Paramount has made is that in streaming, Netflix,

which is already the biggest player, would get even bigger and stronger. So, but I, look, the entertainment business is freaked out about Warner Brothers trading hands no matter what. I think if you ask the average person, they just say, don't sell it. Stay independent. You don't need to do a deal. But it's one thing to sort of believe that philosophically. it's another thing when David Ellison comes and starts throwing money at you at a certain point, the shareholders do have an obligation to consider a deal because if your stock was at $12

and now someone wants to give you $30, that's a pretty good deal. Right. Well, and I take your point that I agree that a lot of these, a lot of people that are being critical of this deal would also be critical of an Ellison deal. But if this deal gets blocked, that is likely what happens. You know, when Disney acquired Fox's Studio, the number of releases, theatrically went down, even though those are both companies that believe in the movies, Paramount and Warner Brothers look a lot more alike than Netflix and Paramount look alike.

So the reason I ask that is only because Trump has a lot of leverage in this moment. And I've seen a lot of talk about block this deal, this deal's better, this deal's worse. I wonder what happens if people start thinking of the ways in which Trump could, through, kind of regulators, the government, let's describe it as the federal government, not the vehicle of the godhead. But if the federal government decided to make some demands upon Netflix and its acquisition, is there, are there changes to the deal that the WGA might like to see made that the theaters would like to see made that would make it more appealing? Yeah, it's, you know, you brought up a point that was interesting because it's sort of the

argument Netflix is made, which is that we have less obvious overlap or fewer kind of redundancies synergies than Paramount. So, you know, we don't own a big studio, so we will continue to operate it as is, whereas if Warner Brothers and Paramount came together, they can say that they're going to release more than 30 movies a year, but they probably won't do that. To your point about Disney and Fox, the numbers come down. You know, there are the conditions that Netflix could agree to in the deal that would placate people in the entertainment business, and then there are those that I think would placate regulators. And I think they're not necessarily the same.

You know, if Netflix sort of contractually committed to putting movies in theaters, now I'm not sure they're going to do that, but let's say they did, that would certainly assuage the concerns of something like Cinemas United, which is, I think, the CEO you referenced earlier of kind of a theater lobbying group.

if they committed to increasing overall spending, which, again, these are all things that they've already publicly said they're going to do. They will continue, Warner Brothers Television Studio, will continue to produce shows for third parties. Those are things that would make people feel a little bit better. You know, those aren't the most normal conditions for a, you know, the case against Netflix would you, from a federal government standpoint,

wouldn't be what's going to happen to the movie theater business, right? Unfortunately, certain businesses rise and fall over time, and it's not the federal government's job to inter... This is not like a business that matters for national security. We all love movies. We want theaters to continue to exist. The federal government's biggest kind of concern when it comes to this deal would be antitrust and whether Netflix has too much power in streaming. And so I think to make streaming, to make people more kind of comfortable on the streaming front,

I could see Netflix agreeing to sell or not acquire sort of HBO streaming business in other parts of the world, like if they had to appease regulators in Europe or Latin America. Here, it's hard to see what they could do on that front. Their argument is just going to be you combine Netflix and HBO, and we still account for less TV viewing than YouTube. That's going to be the crux of their argument. Right. No, well, it's funny.

Because I guess what I'm at is we see all these sort of extraordinary interventions by the Trump administration and ways in which people treat Trump abnormally. right? They lobby him personally. Jared Kushner being part of the deal makes the deal more attractive. And yet, when it comes to how we talk about what the remedies could be, we all were down to the old style of remedies. But Trump seems to have been taking at least some kind of an interest in reviving Hollywood. He'd like to be seen as somebody that does that. Like, I wonder what happens if people, like, if people put their heads together and say, what if we put together what we would like Trump to see make, what demands we would like to see Trump make

of Netflix, irrespective of what these deals have traditionally look like. Right. So if you said, okay, Donald Trump, you want to be seen as a savior of Hollywood, you have a bunch of folks lobby him and say, you know, you talked about terrorists, but what about this? Because tariffs don't actually make sense. Right, right. Well, I mean, here's the thing. Netflix has put $5.8 billion on the table if this falls apart. For scale, right. The domestic box office in the United States is maybe going to hit nine billion if people go see avatar right like they put a ton of like but but i'm serious like they've put a ton of money on the table right like that is leverage not just as the between the

parties making the deal that's like verge the federal government has in this situation right i guess my question is do you think that donald trump actually cares about some of those initiatives i think donald trump uh cares about things in front of him and in how it reflects on him. And Donald Trump, here is how you can save Hollywood, is a story he would love to read. And like, I guess like stepping back, I saw the WGA's statement,

and I agree with the sentiment. I understand where they're coming from. But I just look at the last few years, and there's this kind of unaddressed contradiction in how people outside of the streamers have reacted to changes in the industry, which is on the one hand, you see a lot of the arguments that have a lot of validity and then the Roy Price arguments

about consolidation. And then on the other hand, these companies are criticized for the ways in which they're damaging the industry and yet they are spending extraordinary amounts of money on content every year. We are not where the peak was two or three years ago, but far more money will be spent making scripted television shows this year than, say, 10 years ago, right? So there's a, there's a like unaddressed conflict here or a contradiction here about what's actually happening to the industry. And I don't know if you, if you feel that in talking to people about the ways in which

these companies have brought a lot of money in while at the same time the concentration has unintended consequences. Yeah. I think you're also getting at why, just from an entertainment industry perspective, there's so much resistance to the Netflix deal in particular because Hollywood remains an incredibly insular community. And it has never, try as Ted Sarandos has. And he is in many ways like the mayor of Hollywood. But he's never been able to quite take that mantler position because Netflix has always been viewed as a little bit of an outsider, right? And you have a lot of people who work for the various studios who still resent Netflix for the changes that have happened rather than going,

oh, well, maybe we fucked up in like not recognizing what was going to happen and better positioning ourselves. So I think that's where that's definitely where some of it come from. And to your point about the contradiction, yeah, look, I got a call from a very successful producer late Friday who was like, why is everyone freaking out about the movie business? Netflix doesn't have duplication with Warner Brothers in this area. It will continue to make movies. And by the way, Netflix's movie business has been pretty crappy for the last many years, them buying a studio that actually makes good movies and putting it on the platform could be a good thing. They were actually more worried about the television business because Netflix has more kind of overlap there

with Warner Brothers and thought there should be some job losses. But if it is, if you are looking at it, you know, Netflix has promised to make a smaller kind of smaller cuts than Paramount has. Netflix says two to three billion in cuts. Paramount says six. that's a pretty big difference. How much of that is personal? How much of that is Zazlov just not wanting to do a deal with a NEPO baby? I think personal egos always matter in this stuff. I mean, like we like to say it's all about the numbers,

and that's where boards make their decision. But the fact that David Zazov likes Ted Sarandos probably helps him. I mean, during the process of the sale, if you're in a room and you're, you sort of got like Ted Serendos on one side and David Ellison on the other, there's no question that Ted is going to come off as smoother and a little more charming, and that matters. I do think push comes to shove like money talks. And so if the Paramount deal were clearly better than the Netflix deal, Warner Brothers would have taken it.

And what happens to CNN and all this? So Netflix doesn't want the cable companies. Ellison was interested in the cable companies, including some kind of a way of putting CNN and CBS together. But if the Netflix deals go goes through, that would mean a new company would exist that David Elton could potentially acquire anyway. He could, but I don't think he's interested in just the cable networks are like the tax to get the stuff that he wants. So I don't think that he would go and buy them. Yeah, if Netflix deal is going to happen, they would spin off CNN and a bunch of other cable networks into a separate asset first. And then the, what remains the studio and streaming would be acquired by Netflix. Comcast,

already did a version of this where they spun out a bunch of their cable networks into something called Versant, which has MS Now, formerly known as MSNBC. Ms. Now, yeah. Ms. Now. But so, no, I don't think David Ellison would go after. I don't think David Ellison wants CNN. It's like nice to have. But he wants the studio.

He wants Warner Brothers Studio. He wants the HBO streaming service. Of all those things, the networks are the third most appealing part. So that's interesting because if I've not seen that talked about enough because I see a lot of people saying how bad this deal would be. right but i do think there's something people are assuming that barry weiss is going to be in charge of the whole thing and yeah there's been a lot of well i just a lot of concern every what happens like you know the netflix deal gets killed people that have said it should be stopped get what they

want the ellison deal happens i do think there's whatever like whatever approval problems there could be it seems clear that like because it's smaller the argument against antitrust is stronger for warner brothers and paramount and all of a sudden you have Middle Eastern Petro States, to use your words, own a big chunk of not just Warner Brothers, but also CNN. Right. You know, it's the kind of fact that in almost any other time

would likely be disqualifying for a bid. And there was a point at which the Paramount bid had Chinese money in it to. Yeah, Tencent pulled out like a couple weeks ago, right? Because Tencent had been an, an investor in Skydance, David Ellison's initial company, all that stuff would normally be disqualifying. But obviously, the current administration has really likes the relationships in the Gulf region. Jared Kushner does a lot of business in that area. And they don't seem too concerned about the presence of Middle Eastern money in the bid. I've certainly spoken with people

who are. But I don't, that doesn't seem like something that, that President Trump is going to kill a deal over. Well, two great options for a great American company. What would, what would be, what would be your preferred outcome? To have Kamala Harris, have Kamala Harris give a different answer about why she'll be different than Joe Biden on the fucking view. But, no, my actual, my actual feeling about this, I have no idea. I have no idea, but I do feel like post, even into the strike, post strike, there's a way in

which I just constantly feel like the people inside the industry are kind of running behind the ways it's changing and asking it to stop. And I would just say, I don't know what it looks like, but I would be interested in people who really feel passionately about why a deal like this is dangerous to say this deal should be stopped, but if it goes through, here are the things that we would hope an administration trying to save Hollywood would propose. And I would be interested in that conversation because right now it's, you know, which, which, you know, like, we're, you know, at the bus stop with a bindle. And it's like, which who's going to, which, which terrible ride are we going to take?

But I'd be really interested in like what, what it would look like for someone to come up with creative ideas for what a company with the scale of Netflix could do for theatrical releases and for bringing more production back to California, New York, the United States. So that to me is what I'm interested in. Yeah. No, look, I think you have identified something that bothers me a lot in my coverage of the entertainment business, which is that the people who complain about the ways in which the industry have changed are not really offering proactive solutions. They're just sort of trying to make it go

back to the way things were, and that never works. Yeah. And it's hard to grapple with, like, there's nuance here. Netflix has made extraordinary movies and shows. Some of the best shows are being made by Apple, a company that was not in this business until a few years ago, right? Like, everybody, every, if you need to change the subject over the holidays, you'll say, are you watching pluribus, right? That's made by the phone company. So, you know, it's, it's just to me, like, I feel like I, I am long on people talking about how dangerous all this is and short on the practical changes that would recognize that we're not going back. Yeah. And could you go find some of those? Can you go talk to some of your people and come back with some of those? I will work on

that. I'll put together some bullet points and get a oneer for, for the president. Lucas Shaw, Thank you so much for your time. Good to talk to you. Yeah, thanks for having me. That's our show for today. Thanks to Lucas Shaw for coming on. Thanks to AI George Washington for lending us his voice. Dan and I will be back with a new show on Friday. Talk to everybody then.

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