US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he wants to ensure CNN gets new ownership as part of the Warner Bros Discovery sale, targeting the news outlet he has long feuded with.
Warner Bros Discovery has become the centre of a bidding war between Paramount – led by CEO David Ellison, son of Trump ally Larry Ellison – and streaming giant Netflix.
Under Paramount’s offer, CNN would fall into the Ellisons’ hands. Under the Netflix deal, Warner Bros Discovery would sell off CNN and other cable news properties separately before closing the sale of its studio and streaming operations to Netflix.
“I think any deal should – it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately,” Trump told business leaders Wednesday at the White House.
“I don’t think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN, which is a very dishonest group of people, I don’t think that should be allowed to continue. I think CNN should be sold along with everything else,” he added.
In a break from the norm, Trump has said he would be involved in the government’s decision to approve the deal, instead of leaving the question solely to the Department of Justice, as is typically the case.
US media reports indicate that both bidders – which Trump called “good companies” in his remarks – have lobbied the White House and Trump directly to support their bids.
Trump has long had a hostile relationship with CNN and other major news organisations, branding them “fake news” and attacking them repeatedly on social media.
His insistence that CNN end up in friendly hands appears to favour the Paramount bid – even though the Netflix deal would also involve selling off the news network to an as-yet-unknown buyer.
Since David Ellison took over Paramount earlier this year, the company has named journalist Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Weiss is a prominent critic of what she calls bias in mainstream media, and the appointment won praise from conservatives who have long accused mainstream outlets of liberal bias.
Days before Ellison took the reins of CBS, The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a late-night staple and major Trump critic, was cancelled.
But Trump railed against Paramount and Ellison on Monday, posting on Truth Social that “THEY ARE NO BETTER THAN THE OLD OWNERSHIP” for allowing an interview with Marjorie Taylor Greene, a political ally-turned-critic.
Netflix, by contrast, is closely associated with Democrats, with founder Reed Hastings a major Democratic Party donor. AFP
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