Antitrust and Media Mergers

At a White House appearance, former President Trump said any sale of Warner Bros. Discovery should include CNN — either sold with the company or separately — calling current CNN leadership "corrupt or incompetent" and saying he would "probably be involved" in ensuring it is sold. His comments heighten the stakes between competing bids (Netflix’s roughly $83 billion offer would exclude CNN while Paramount’s $108 billion hostile bid includes the cable networks and disclosed Gulf and private financing), as WBD’s board faces a short deadline and CNN staffers warn a spinoff with heavy debt could leave the network’s future "up for grabs."