Trump Has One Demand on Warner Sale

President Trump is inserting himself into the high-stakes battle over Warner Bros. Discovery's future, saying CNN should be sold or overhauled no matter who wins the bidding war. "I think it's imperative that CNN be sold," Trump said at the White House on Wednesday, adding "any deal … should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it, or sold separately," per the Wall Street Journal. He also said he didn't believe the network's current leadership "should be allowed to continue." This is yet another sign of Trump's weariness toward the Netflix-Warner deal, which he previously suggested might give Netflix too big a market share.

Warner has agreed to sell its studios and HBO Max streaming platform to Netflix in a $72 billion cash-and-stock proposal, with Warner's television unit excluded, so it's unclear how Netflix might satisfy Trump's demands. Paramount Skydance, by contrast, has made a hostile offer (worth $77.9 billion, per the Journal) for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, with CEO David Ellison suggesting CNN and CBS News could be folded together. That offer also involves the private equity firm of Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Trump weighed in on the proposed mergers during the same event in which he accused a CNN correspondent of working for Democrats, per the Journal. "You're basically an arm of the Democratic Party," he said.