The NPR Politics Podcast - What is Trump's interest in Paramount's merger with WB?

Episode Date: August 6, 2026

President Trump has taken a particular interest in Paramount's plan to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery for $111 billion. We discuss why the president is backing the deal — which is on hold after a group of Democratic attorneys general challenged it in court — and how the president's relationship with the press is influencing the deal. This episode: senior political correspondent Tamara Keith, media correspondent David Folkenflik, and senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson.This podcast was produced by Casey Morell and edited by Rachel Baye.Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.Support public media with NPR+ and enjoy perks for over 25 podcasts like this one. This show’s perks include bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening. Learn more at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You may have heard about the planned merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers. It's a massive business transaction worth $111 billion. There's a Hollywood angle. There's a media angle. But it's also just a fascinating episode in the ongoing battle between the president and the press. It's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics.

I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And we also have NPR media correspondent, David Folk. can flick here with us today. Hey, David. Hey, guys. David, you have been covering this merger through all the ins and outs, but this is the first time we're talking about it on the pod. So what do we need to know? So, I mean, it's just an extraordinary effort to bring together these two Hollywood Titans, right? These great names that have echoed for a century in Hollywood. Think of under the same roof you would have Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers Studios, HBO, and

showtime. You'd have Paramount Plus and HBO Max as streamers, and you'd have the nation's most watch broadcast TV network in CBS under the same roof as like 50 plus basic cable channels. There are probably a whole bunch of other units I'm not even mentioning, but it is an extraordinary constellation of entertainment assets that would all be under the Allison family. And CBS News and CNN would be under the same roof and presumably to some degree significantly integrated. Journalism Titans right there. We should note that Paramount Plus, CNN, HBO, Warner Brothers Pictures, and Warner Brothers Discovery are financial supporters of NPR. So, David, why do these Titans want to merge? So Paramount actually was part of an $8 billion deal just approved by the Trump

administration a year ago. They were taken over by David Allison, who had run Skydance media, a Hollywood producer who'd done the Mission Impossible movies, among others. And really, the money behind him is Larry Ellison, who's the co-founder of Oracle and one of the wealthiest people walking the planet. So they want, in short time, to take over not only Paramount, which they did in just an $8 billion deal,

and now in Warner and a deal valued at $11 billion. And they're making the argument that they need this scale. They need this scale not to compete just in Hollywood, but compete against the new Titans of the, entertainment field. And those are actually digital titans. So you're thinking about Netflix. You're talking about Amazon and you're talking about Apple. And they say, we need this scale to fight the streamers just as Disney got approval during the first Trump administration to buy most of Fox's Hollywood assets because they saw the streaming threat coming. Right now, Paramount and Warner,

you know, with Paramount Plus and HBO Max are looking to their digital competitors and saying, we're going to have real trouble winning this alone. Yeah, and you know, it's so interesting about this and the reason why we're talking about it on the politics podcast, not just the merger podcast, is because President Trump has taken a big interest in this merger, not just personally and financially. He actually invested in Paramount and Warner Brothers while his own Department of Justice was looking at the merger, but also because there are two news organizations involved in this merger, CNN and CBS. Yes, and President Trump has made it very clear for a very long time that he at least wants to bend the coverage of news networks to be more favorable to him. So he's taken a big interest in this merger, and here he is speaking to Caitlin Collins, CNN correspondent, in June during an Oval Office pool spray. The fake news like CNN, like the New York Times and like others, have abused our people. Wait a minute, be quiet. Have abused our people so badly. And you should be a sure.

shame of yourself. You used to be a conservative. She was a conservative from Alabama. Can you believe it? But CNN, in particular, CNN does such false reporting. But now they have new ownership, so maybe it'll straighten it out. I doubt it. But it's hard to straighten garbage out. You know, it's pretty clear what Trump wants in this. Yeah, I mean, it's truly remarkable to hear him say it out loud to talk about the new ownership and his hopes for the new ownership. David, what does the new ownership say about this? Well, they've got to walk a fine line. You know, Larry and David Ellison have not been subtle because they can't be subtle in appealing to President Trump in such a way that they're going to say, we'll be good stewards of CNN in the way that you want us to be. And so, for example, Larry Ellison has been an advisor for Trump on AI issues and other issues. Larry Elson has given money towards his political races. David Ellison hosted a dinner at the Peace Institute now named for the president, which is in some ways supposed to be an honor of the First Amendment at which Trump was the guest of honor. And yet publicly, you know, David Ellison says, look, we are trying to remedy

the, you know, deep plunges in trust the public writ large has in the press. And we're trying to restore that in how we approach the news. He wrote an op-ed this week saying that, you know, his interest was in making sure he'd never put a finger on the scale that he has supported Republicans and Democrats and he just wants to restore trust. But what he hasn't done is really talk about his father's relationship to the president or the moves that he has made at CBS in the brief time in which he has owned and controlled that network. And, you know, I mentioned all the assets that are underneath the same roof. But of course, you know, CBS News and CNN would be under the same roof as well, and they have not signaled exactly what they're going to do. You know, if you think about how

Trump has weighed in, just the clip that Mara played for us there about this, he's eager for CNN to be under the Ellison's control. British regulators just this week approved the merger, but won a series of concessions about the way in which the news operations there and certain kinds of British entertainment properties that they would control there if the merger goes through would operate through the end of 2034, the Trump administration offered kind of a Matador defense. It has waved it through all but entirely without a single known concession so far. Well, then you have some lawsuits in the United States. Democratic States Attorney General are suing about this merger. Now, they say that this lawsuit is a meat and potatoes antitrust suit. In other words, very simple. It's about monopolistic control,

consolidation, loss of jobs. Ellison argues. that the legal challenges are about politics and not about the state of antitrust concerns that are the core of the lawsuit there. Well, I think Democrats would agree with them. It's definitely about politics. You know, the Democrats would claim both and are claiming both. Yeah, sure, sure. It is a question about how, you know, from a legal standpoint's question of how you're defining the marketplace. Are we really talking about Hollywood or are we talking about all the different opportunities to divert people's attention through entertainment, through streaming platforms and other means? In reality, you know, Ellison both is accusing his critics of politics and not acknowledging the way in which politics has informed his own approach to trying to get this $11 billion deal across the line. And it's going to be a long and extended court challenge if they can't find a way to resolve the concerns of the Democratic attorneys general.

And the Ellison's pushing for this to be cited real quickly because it costs them money every day past September 30th. that it is delayed. They have to pay Warner Brothers Discovery shareholders about $7 million a day. The judge has delayed it to March of next year, which is going to be about a $1.5 billion hit for Paramount, just on that delay alone. David, you mentioned British regulators. When a merger happens, a really big merger between major companies, often there are regulatory sign-offs required. There are questions about antitrust or monopoly practices. So what happened in this case? So you're absolutely right. In this country, there have to be antitrust reviews on things like this. And it was taken up by two major government agencies. One is the Department of Justice antitrust division, which gave it a green light. The Wall Street Journal reported, in fact that that decision was made by senior Justice Department officials at the political levels,

not the non-political professionals within the antitrust division. The recently stepped down head of the antitrust division has denied that. But nonetheless, the idea that the journal is reporting is that the decision was made, if anything, prematurely by top officials to prevent the nonpartisan lawyers from deciding that they wanted the administration actually to intervene to either require concessions or to prevent this from going through. Secondarily, there's the Federal Communications Commission, and it's only involved not because of Warner Brothers Discovery's assets,

but because Paramount itself owns a couple dozen television stations, and the new merger would require a significant infusion of foreign investment, and that foreign investment in the broadcast local TV licenses held by Paramount requires review. The FCC hasn't yet given the OK on that, but interestingly, the head of the FCC, who has worked very closely with President Trump on his media priorities, has signaled that he, you know, supports this deal. David, is that what you meant earlier when you said this was a Matador treatment?

Absolutely. Waving the bull through with the cape. You wave the cape and let the bull with the horns just run right through. Yeah, I've never heard that before, but that is a great metaphor. It is a good image. All right, well, we are going to take a quick break and we'll be back in a moment. And we're back. And we started to talk about this a little bit earlier.

but I want to dig in on it more about how President Trump is involved in this merger. So what is his involvement, David? So Trump has just, you know, first off, talked about it. He has talked about the idea, particularly that CNN owned by Warner Brothers Discovery needs new ownership. And he has trashed CNN repeatedly, as we heard, but not just then. He has a close relationship with Larry Ellison, whom, you know, as we've reported, has been an advisor Trump, has been a financial backer Trump.

Trump basically arranged a sale of TikTok operating in the U.S. to a consortium that's effectively controlled by Ellison and for which his company, Oracle, is sort of a dominant player, you know. And so they essentially have been intertwined, you know, Ellison promoting Trump's political interests and Trump promoting Ellison's business interests.

So you've seen that. that happened, you've seen David Ellison make gestures and concessions to Trump's regulators in taking over Paramount and CBS in particular, appointing an editor-in-chief over CBS News who believes that much of the mainstream media is too reflexively hostile to Trump, to anti-Israel, and too reflexively woke. And that was taken as a sign both of embodying promises and principles set out in getting the Trump administration's approval for this, the takeover of Paramount a year ago, and also signaling what he'd be interested in doing with CNN as he seeks to do this much bigger takeover. So that is the state of play. And that's why Trump's involved.

And that's why it's front of mind for Trump. He of course cares it very. He always talks about how the media is failing and he doesn't care. He is deeply invested in understanding how the media works and in helping to dictate and control it. Yeah. And get more favorable. not to mention that he invested in these companies as he was, as his own administration was looking at the merger. Extraordinary. So he has a personal financial interest. Mara, you know, President Trump is not entirely wrong that the media is failing. When you say failing as in failing financially. There are financial concerns. There are issues with trust. Well, sure, just like every other institution in America, there's no doubt that the media has the media writ large and the media, is not one behemoth thing. But yes, it's struggling. It's struggling with new technologies.

It's struggling with the fact that people are losing faith in all institutions, all democratic institutions in this country. So he had a fertile field to plow there. But don't forget, he's been talking about fake news, and you could translate that to news I don't like. He's been doing this ever since he started running 11 years ago. So this is part of a project, and he's been very successful at it. I mean, he said the media was too left and fake and not friendly enough to him, and slowly but surely it's changing and it's getting more friendly to him. There are some interesting examples where it's not completely 100%.

Rupert Murdoch is one of them. He owns Fox News, which is a pretty pro-Trump outfit. Now, full disclosure, I was on Foxx. News is a contributor for 25 years until June of 2023. However, Rupert Murdoch also owns the Wall Street Journal, which has not only broken a lot of stories about the Trump administration that Trump did not want to see in the paper, but Murdoch also famously buried the announcement of Trump's run in 2024 on something like page 16 of the New York Post where he said, Florida man announces for president. So it can be complicated. But, but, but,

overall, I think that Trump has been successful at trying to change the media, just like he's trying to change our form of government in other ways. And in this case, he's talking about straightening out the media. You heard him castigating Caitlin Collins. Yeah, I mean, David, this doesn't happen in isolation. There are more lawsuits than I have the breath to talk about filed by the president against these news organizations. Some organizations have settled with him. It really does feel like, like 2025, 2026, is different from 2017, 2018, when Trump was first in office. Yeah, the funny thing is, you know, I might take issue in some ways the idea that the media is failing, but the media is under unbelievable pressure and it's financial, it's technological. It's the ways in which consumers absorb news and entertainment and information and their interest in it. You know, and it's also the government pressure, which is just extraordinary. And I think that if you think of how the press operated in 2016, 2017, I actually think the press is more responsible now. It was in some ways more hysterical about what Trump was doing at times because what he did was unprecedented and it didn't know how to absorb it. And at times, I don't feel that even mainstream news organizations did great in sifting through and fact checking and verifying all the allegations against him because so many crazily, you know, seemingly crazy allegations against him turned to be.

turned out to be true or at least have credibility to them. I think the the accountability journalism going on now is is tighter and tougher and smarter. And yet he has, you know, been emboldened in his return to office in January of last year to, as you say, use the courts as a private citizen to go after almost every major news outlet you can think of, use the levers of power of government to go after public media, specifically because he doesn't like their, you know, its coverage, using the levers of power to reward those that he would feel fits with his agenda through approval of major deals like this one. You know, when Fox in his first term and the Murdoch's, an ally, as much as Rupert Murdoch doesn't respect Trump, he has forged a very good working

alliance with Trump when he can. He sold off. at the peak point, a bunch of his Hollywood assets to Disney. And Trump's only concern was that he hold on to Fox News so that his ally, Rupert would still control Fox News. And Rupert said to him, absolutely, I'm holding on to it. And Trump said, great. You know, God bless. Good luck. And that was a call that happened the morning that was announced. That was Trump's only concern. It was essentially waived through. So you're seeing a time at which the courts and the levers of government are being used against those who would harm him. You're seeing Jeff Bezos, who lost billions of dollars for cloud computing contracts because the Washington Post, which he personally

owned, was holding Trump accountable through reporting that Trump didn't like in his first term. Suddenly, Jeff Bezos has totally reinvented the opinion pages of the Washington Post. It blew up a planned endorsement of Trump's foe in 2024. And Bezos is feted by this president. This is a time at which the folks who control the levers of power have enjoyed the fruits of using them in ways that may or may not be in the broader interests of the American people. Yeah. And even though the media is not a monolithic thing, what David just described is very, very widespread. And it's also very familiar to people who study how democratic institutions become undermined and a democratic form of government gets turned into something quite different, something more authoritarian, where. the government has a lot of control over media because these companies depend on the government for contracts. The speed at which these big corporations and the titans of capitalism were willing to accept government control or government influence was pretty stunning. It strikes me that that's one of the signal lessons of our moment is that both the figures over major media properties right now, as is true in the tech world, are yielding to power.

And it may well prove to be less partisan, less ideological, than more just sort of a kind of weakness in the face of, you know, somebody in the Oval Office willing to exercise all the levers available to him. I think we're going to leave it there for now. But thank you so much, David, for joining us on the pot. You bet. I'm Tamara Keith. I cover politics. I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast.