The fate of Warner Bros. Discovery could hinge on a frequent subject of President Trump’s ire: CNN.
President Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that the ownership of CNN should change regardless of which company buys Warner and that it is “imperative that CNN be sold.”
Behind the scenes in recent days, Trump has repeatedly told allies that CNN should either be sold or see new leadership, according to people familiar with the matter, even if Netflix’s proposal is approved. The president has been unwavering in meetings with allies about his position on CNN and he has connected its future to deal negotiations with Warner Bros., the people said.
For Trump, the deal represents a second chance to take aim at CNN. During his first term, the Justice Department unsuccessfully tried to block a sale of CNN’s parent company, then known as Time Warner, to AT&T unless the network was spun off.
The president’s intervention in corporate dealmaking raises fresh questions about how a transaction might proceed.
Warner Bros. last week agreed to sell just its studios and HBO Max streaming business—but not the TV networks group that includes CNN—to Netflix for $72 billion in cash and stock.
If Netflix’s acquisition succeeds, Warner Discovery would continue with its plans to spin off CNN and its other cable networks into a stand-alone, publicly traded company called Discovery Global. Despite declining ratings, Warner executives consider CNN a vital part of Discovery Global.
The split is structured to be tax-free for U.S. federal income tax purposes, the company has said. A stand-alone sale of CNN before or after a split would have significant tax implications.
After Warner’s deal with Netflix was announced, CNN Chief Executive Mark Thompson told staff that it would “enable us to continue to roll out our strategy to secure a great future for CNN by successfully navigating our digital transition.”
Three days later, Ellison launched a $77.9 billion hostile bid for all of Warner Discovery, including cable networks such as CNN.
Representatives for Warner, Netflix and Paramount declined to comment on the president’s remarks about CNN.
All roads lead to Trump
The prevailing bidder for Warner is likely to face a lengthy regulatory review and, as Trump has made increasingly clear, pressure from the White House.
“In the world in which we live, there is no doubt that the expeditiousness of a regulatory review can be affected by presidential interest,” said Jon Leibowitz, a former Democratic Federal Trade Commission chairman.
Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison and his billionaire father, Larry Ellison, have close ties to Trump’s White House. They have signaled to the administration that if they got control of CNN, they would seek to overhaul it, much in the same way they are currently trying to make over CBS News.
Trump has told allies he is open to considering a new deal for Warner in which CNN is completely sold off from the business and not spun off into Discovery Global as planned, people familiar with the discussions said. In private conversations, the president has said that CNN should be run by people he believes are friendlier toward him and the Republican Party, according to a person who has spoken to Trump in recent weeks.
Trump has said positive things about Paramount’s proposal, according to people close to him, and has a longstanding relationship with the Ellisons.
He also has warmed to Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos. After meeting with Sarandos, the president has both publicly and privately praised the media executive and has expressed openness to working with him, according to people close to both men.
Trump has said Netflix’s deal “could be a problem” because it would result in a large market share for the streaming giant. White House officials and Trump advisers also have expressed frustration over a Netflix movie set to stream on the platform based on a true story about a transgender coal miner, the people said. Other streaming services including Paramount+ offer content featuring transgender and nonbinary characters.
“The stakes aren’t just the traditional corporate deal,” said Rob Lalka, a professor at Tulane’s Freeman School of Business. “It’s about who is in charge of what gets put before us on the screen. It literally changes what we see, which changes what we think.”
Tension with the press
For years, Trump has used social media—particularly his platform, Truth Social—to reprimand the press for negative coverage. The Trump administration more recently has upended longstanding precedents for press access.
CNN reporters have often been the subject of Trump’s rebukes. He called Kaitlan Collins, the network’s chief White House correspondent, “stupid and nasty” in a Dec. 6 Truth Social post. “FAKE NEWS CNN, and the guy who runs the whole corrupt operation that owns it, is one of the worst in the business,” he wrote. On Wednesday, he criticized a CNN reporter at the White House. “You’re basically an arm of the Democratic Party,” he told the reporter.
The president has told associates recently that he is also unhappy with CBS News, saying the network hasn’t done enough to moderate its coverage, people close to him said. David Ellison became CEO of CBS parent Paramount this summer after it merged with his Skydance Media.
On Truth Social earlier this week, Trump criticized CBS News journalist Lesley Stahl as well as the network’s new ownership. “Since they bought it, 60 Minutes has actually gotten WORSE!” he wrote.
Prior to the Paramount-Skydance merger, Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
Soon after taking over Paramount, Ellison installed Free Press founder Bari Weiss, a former New York Times opinion editor turned anti-woke crusader, as editor in chief of CBS News.
This week Tony Dokoupil was named anchor of “CBS Evening News,” with Weiss saying the current “CBS Mornings” co-host would renew Americans’ trust in the media. Dokoupil’s appointment illustrates Weiss’s intention to upend the status quo at the network; his on-air comments last year about a book critical of Israel prompted turmoil within CBS. Ellison and Weiss have said they want to make CBS News more appealing to the center of the political spectrum.
Write to Brian Schwartz at brian.schwartz@wsj.com and Alex Leary at alex.leary@wsj.com
