On Thursday, Netflix dropped out of the monthslong bidding war to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, paving the way for Paramount Skydance to take over the media giant. Under Paramount’s bid, the company would purchase the entire Warner Bros. Discovery portfolio, including HBO and CNN.
MS NOW’s Ari Melber reacted to Paramount’s apparent victory on Thursday’s “The Beat” and explained why this is the outcome that “Donald Trump and many MAGA allies view as favorable.”
“This is something that Donald Trump wanted,” Melber said.
Paramount CEO David Ellison, the son of Larry Ellison, is a billionaire tech entrepreneur, co-founder of Oracle and a major Trump donor.
When David Ellison took control of CBS last August, he made major changes to the network’s news division, tamping down on what he considered a liberal bias at the network and tapping commentator Bari Weiss to run the operation.
Under David Ellison’s leadership, the network also cancelled “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” days after the host and comedian publicly criticized Paramount’s decision to settle a lawsuit brought by Trump against its long-running news program “60 Minutes.”
“I want to put this in plain English,” Melber said, “The folks that Colbert has been fighting with, the folks who have been gutting, according to many long-time independent journalists, what CBS and ‘60 Minutes’ means, tonight, new as of the last five minutes, they’re going to get control of the Warner Bros. media empire, including CNN.”
Critics of the deal, as Melber explained, are now worried CNN, a network that often showcases critical coverage of the president, could “get the CBS treatment.” Defenders of Paramount’s move have argued that this is simply “what the market wanted.”
As the MS NOW host noted, Trump has not been quiet about his desire to see CNN sold off. In December, he told reporters at the White House he believed it was “imperative” that it find new owners.
“I think CNN should be sold, because I think the people running CNN right now are either corrupt or incompetent,” he said.
With Paramount set to take control, Melber said Trump and his allies are likely hoping that the same changes David Ellison made to CBS News could soon come to CNN.
You can watch Melber’s full analysis in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”