ellison

In remarks that are likely to stoke concerns through the corridors of CNN, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said Friday he is looking forward to Paramount’s ownership of the network.

“The sooner David Ellison takes over that network the better,” Hegseth said during a morning briefing.

Hegseth’s invoking the name of the Paramount Skydance chief executive — whose company will take control of CNN once its deal to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery is finalized — amplified the fear many have that the cable news channel will seek to appease the Trump administration.

The typically combative Hegseth made the remarks after blasting CNN’s reporting on the U.S. military action in Iran. CNN said the Trump administration underestimated the impact its attack would have on the Strait of Hormuz, echoing the claims of other media outlets. Oil tankers have been unable to get through the passage due to attacks by Iranian drones, escalating gas prices as a result.

“CNN doesn’t think we thought of that,” Hegseth said. “It’s a fundamentally unserious report.”

Paramount declined to comment on the remarks by Hegseth, a former Fox News host who has a lot of experience in bashing the mainstream media. A CNN representative said the network stands by its reporting.

Trump has a friendship with Ellison’s father, Larry, and the two have reportedly discussed changes to CNN once Paramount takes ownership. But it’s the rare time such expectations have been offered up publicly by a top member of the administration.

Trump, who has long expressed disdain for CNN, expressed his preference for Paramount to prevail over Netfilx in its pursuit of Warner Bros. Discovery so that CNN would be in the hands of the Ellisons.

In his last public statement about CNN, David Ellison said he wants to be in the “truth business” and insisted there would be no corporate interference in the network’s coverage.

“CNN is an incredible brand with an incredible team, and we absolutely believe in the independence that needs to be maintained, obviously, for those incredible journalists, and we want to support that going forward,” Ellison told CNBC on March 5.

Paramount has been forced to battle the perception of that its news organizations will tilt to the right under its stewardship. One of David Ellison’s first moves after his company Skydance Media took over CBS was installing Bari Weiss as editor in chief of the network’s news division despite having no experience in TV news. Ellison acquired Weiss’s the Free Press, a centrist digital news site that often targets excesses of the political left and is staunchly pro-Israel.

The acquisition and the appointment of Weiss were seen as a way to help smooth the regulatory approval of Skydance’s acquisition of Paramount last year. CBS News has been under intense scrutiny for signs that is shifting its coverage to please the administration.

A number of CBS News journalists unhappy over the division’s direction under Weiss have already departed. Scott MacFarlane, the Justice Department correspondent who announced his exit Monday, was said to be particularly unhappy over the network’s handling of the anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters who wanted to overturn the 2020 election results.

Anderson Cooper also passed on signing a new deal with “60 Minutes,” where he has been a correspondent since 2007. But with the merger, the CNN anchor will still be a part of the company.

Weiss’ has had some early missteps. The Jan. 6 story was among several highly criticized segments during the first week of “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil.” She delayed a “60 Minutes” segment on the government’s use of an El Salvador prison to detain undocumented migrants for more reporting, only to have it air with minor changes. The delay prompted charges that Weiss was trying to placate the White House, which CBS denied.

Notwithstanding the controversy, some insiders contend there has
not been a significant shift in how CBS News is covering most stories.

The network was among the first to report that the severity of injuries to U.S. service members from an Iranian drone attack in Kuwait were far more serious than the government initially said.

CBS News is also moving ahead with the hiring of Jeremy Adler, once a top advisor to former congresswoman and outspoken Trump nemesis Liz Cheney, to handle communications for Weiss, according to people familiar with the plan who were not authorized to speak publicly.

Axios — citing unnamed sources — reported that White House officials are angry about Adler joining the network, as Cheney was vice chairman of the committee that investigated the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney and one of the most conservative members of Congress during her time, supported Trump’s opponent Kamala Harris in the 2020 election.

Adler was Cheney’s deputy chief of staff and senior communications advisor from 2019 to 2023. He also served as a regional press secretary on now-Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Minnesota’s governor and attorney general on Wednesday defended their efforts to combat fraud and told a U.S. House committee that their efforts have been hampered by President Trump’s immigration crackdown in the state.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee accused Gov. Tim Walz and Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison of stalling to fight fraud in government programs, saying they put politics ahead of rooting out abuse instead of pausing payments.

“You have not been good stewards of the taxpayer dollars,” said Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the committee. “And the Democratic position is keep the money flowing. The American taxpayers have had enough.”

Walz said he wanted to work with the federal government to help with fraud investigations, but the immigration surge was making that more difficult.

“The people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale,” Walz said. “We’re going to prosecute, as we have, every single person that’s involved in fraud, but we can’t do it alone.”

Walz and Ellison defended their efforts on fraud, while also trying to turn the focus of the hearing to the surge of 3,000 federal agents in Minnesota that began in December. The Trump administration cited fraud as one justification for its enforcement action. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem testified Tuesday that about 650 investigators remain in Minnesota as part of a broader fraud probe.

“Operation Metro Surge did nothing to address fraud in our state,” Ellison said. “It harmed our economy and it scarred our people and it dealt a devastating blow to fraud enforcement in Minnesota.”

Ellison noted the series of resignations of lawyers in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota, leaving those who remain “drowning in immigration-related petitions” instead of prosecuting fraud. On Tuesday, the U.S. attorney for Minnesota appeared before a judge for a contempt hearing related to Immigration and Customs Enforcement not returning personal property of detainees.

Ellison said his office has “punched above our weight” in winning 300 Medicaid fraud convictions and recovering more than $80 million for taxpayers.

Republican Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana called on Ellison to resign, accusing him of not leading investigations into criminal fraud activity.

Last week, Vice President JD Vance said the Trump administration would “temporarily halt” $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud concerns, as part of what he described as an aggressive crackdown on misuse of public funds. Minnesota sued on Monday to stop the money from being withheld, warning it may have to cut healthcare for low-income families if the money is held back.

Comer on Wednesday accused Walz of not stopping Medicaid payments despite knowledge of fraud because he “didn’t want to rock the boat.”

Comer and other Republicans accused Walz of lying about when he first found out about fraud in a $250-million scheme known as Feeding Our Future and stalling to act in order to protect the Somali American community. Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio asked Walz if he know how many of those who had been indicted were Somali Americans.

“Their ethnicity is not my concern,” Walz said.

Somali Americans make up 82 of the 92 defendants charged so far in the Feeding Our Future case, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for Minnesota.

Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, as part of the effort to focus the hearing on the immigration crackdown, held up images of children detained by federal officers and a picture of the blood-stained car seat of Renee Good who was killed by an officer. Federal officers also killed another Minnesota resident, Alex Pretti, who had been filming enforcement operations.

“This violence does not make us safer,” Garcia said. “It does not address fraud, waste and abuse.”

Bauer writes for the Associated Press.

Paramount Skydance’s jubilation over its come-from-behind victory to claim Warner Bros. Discovery has entered a new phase:

Call it the deal-debt hangover.

Two major ratings agencies have raised concerns about Paramount’s credit because of the enormous debt the David Ellison-led company will have to shoulder — at least $79 billion — once it absorbs the larger Warner Bros. Discovery, bringing CNN, HBO, TBS and Cartoon Network into the Paramount fold.

Fitch Ratings said Monday that it placed Paramount on its “negative” ratings watch, and downgraded its credit to BB+ from BBB-, which puts the company’s credit into “junk” territory. Fitch said it took action due to “uncertainty” surrounding Paramount’s $110-billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery, which the boards of both companies approved on Friday.

S&P Global Ratings took similar action.

To finance the Warner takeover, Ellison’s billionaire father, Larry Ellison, has agreed to guarantee the $45.7 billion in equity needed. Bank of America, Citibank and Apollo Global have agreed to provide Paramount with more than $54 billion in debt financing.

“Potential credit risks include the prospective debt-funded structure, Fitch’s expectation of materially elevated leverage and limited visibility on post-transaction financial policy and capital structure,” Fitch said.

Late last week, Paramount sent $2.8 billion to Netflix as a “termination fee” to officially end the streaming giant’s pursuit of Warner Bros. That payment paved the way for Warner and Paramount’s board to enter into the new merger agreement.

Paramount hopes the merger will be wrapped up by the end of September. It needs the approval of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders and regulators, including the European Union.

Paramount executives acknowledged this week the new company would emerge with $79 billion in debt — a considerably higher total than what Warner Bros. Discovery had following its spinoff from AT&T. That 2022 transaction left Warner Bros. Discovery with nearly $55 billion of debt, a burden that led to endless waves of cost-cutting, including thousands of layoffs and dozens of canceled projects.

Warner still has $33.5 billion in debt, a lingering legacy that will be passed on to Paramount.

Paramount plans to restructure about $15 billion in Warner Bros. Discovery’s existing debt.

Paramount CEO David Ellison at a 2024 movie premiere for a Netflix show.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)

Paramount told Wall Street it would find more than $6 billion in cost cuts or “synergies” within three years — a number that has weighed heavily on entertainment industry workers, particularly in Los Angeles.

Hollywood already is reeling from previous mergers in addition to a sharp pullback in film and television production locally as filmmakers chase tax credits offered overseas and in other states, including New York and New Jersey.

Some entertainment executives, including Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos, have speculated that Paramount will need to find more than $10 billion in cost cuts to make the math work. More recently, Sarandos went higher, telling Bloomberg News that Paramount may need $16 billion in cuts.

Cognizant of widespread fears about additional layoffs, Paramount Chief Operating Officer Andrew Gordon took steps this week to try to tamp down such concerns.

Gordon is a former Goldman Sachs banker and a former executive with RedBird Capital Partners, an investor in Paramount and the proposed Warner Bros. deal. He joined Paramount last August as part of the Ellison takeover.

During a conference call Monday with analysts, Gordon said Paramount would look beyond the workforce for cuts because the company wants to maintain its film and TV production levels.

Paramount plans to look for cost savings by consolidating the “technology stacks and cloud providers” for its streaming services, including Paramount+ and HBO Max, Gordon said. The company also would search for reductions in corporate overhead, marketing expenses, procurement, business services and “optimizing the combined real estate footprint.”

It’s unclear whether Paramount would sell the historic Melrose Avenue lot or simply centralize the sprawling operations onto the Warner Bros. and Paramount lots in Burbank and Hollywood.

Workers are scattered throughout the region.

HBO, owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, maintains its West Coast headquarters in Culver City; CBS television stations operate from CBS’ former lot off Radford Avenue in Studio City; and CBS Entertainment and Paramount cable channels executive teams are located in a high-rise off Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard, blocks from the Paramount movie studio lot.

“The combination of PSKY and WBD could create a materially stronger business than either individual entity,” Standard & Poor’s said in its note to investors. “However, this transaction presents unique challenges because it would involve the combination of three companies, with the smallest, Skydance, being the controlling entity.”

David Ellison’s production firm, Skydance Media, was the entity that bought Paramount, creating Paramount Skydance.

Ellison has not announced what the combined company will be called.

Paramount shares closed down more than 6% Tuesday to $12.45.

Warner Bros. Discovery fell 1% to $28.20. Netflix added less than 1% to close at $97.70.

As the media industry took stock of Paramount Skydance’s startling acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, one question lingered on the minds of many in the news business and beyond: what will this mean for CNN?

The iconic 24-hour cable news network is among the various Warner Bros. assets that would be scooped up by Paramount in a deal announced Thursday that could transform the media landscape.

Paramount has undergone a swift transformation under Chief Executive David Ellison following his family’s acquisition of the company last summer. These changes reached CBS News almost immediately with the appointment of Bari Weiss, the controversial Free Press co-founder, as its new editor in chief.

Bari Weiss moderated a town hall with Erika Kirk, widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

(CBS via Getty Images)

Weiss’ tenure so far has been rocky.

Her decision to pull a “60 Minutes” story about conditions inside an El Salvador prison that housed undocumented Venezuelan migrants from the U.S. received widespread criticism and accusations of political motivation. The network said the story was held for more reporting, and the segment eventually aired.

There was more upheaval last week at the news magazine, when “60 Minutes” correspondent and CNN news anchor Anderson Cooper announced that he’d be leaving to spend more time with his family.

And earlier this year, a veteran producer at “CBS Evening News With Tony Dokoupil” was fired after he expressed disagreement about the editorial direction of the newscast.

Now, the concern is that similar changes could be in store for CNN, which has long been a target of President Trump’s ire. He has personally called for the ouster of hosts at the network who have questioned his policies.

CNN Worldwide Chief Executive Mark Thompson tried to quell some of those fears, particularly inside his own newsroom.

In an internal memo dated Thursday and obtained by The Times, Thompson urged employees not to “jump to conclusions about the future” and try to concentrate on their work.

“We’re still near the start of what is already an incredibly newsy year at home and abroad,” he wrote in the note. “Let’s continue to focus on delivering the best possible journalism to the millions of people who rely on us all around the world.”

Chairman and CEO of CNN Worldwide Mark Thompson and media editor for Semafor, Maxwell Tani, speak onstage.

(Shannon Finney / Getty Images for Semafor)

CNN declined to comment beyond Thompson’s memo.

Ellison has said his vision for a news business is one that is ideologically down the middle.

“We want to build a scaled news service that is basically, fundamentally in the trust business, that is in the truth business, and that speaks to the 70% of Americans that are in the middle,” he said during a Dec. 8 interview on CNBC, shortly after Warner said it had chosen Netflix as the winning bidder for its studios, HBO and HBO Max. “And we believe that by doing so that is for us, kind of doing well, while doing good.”

Ellison demurred when asked whether Trump would embrace him as CNN’s owner, given the president’s past criticisms of the network.

“We’ve had great conversations with the president about this, but … I don’t want to speak for him in any way, shape or form,” he said.

First Amendment scholars have raised concerns about press freedom and free speech rights under the Trump administration, particularly after last month’s arrest of former CNN journalist Don Lemon and the Federal Communications Commission’s pressure on late-night hosts like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert.

Press freedom groups have long asked questions in other countries about how authoritarian regimes use their power and “oligarchical alliances to belittle, silence, and punish independent journalistic voices, or to steer media ownership toward … a preferred version of the truth,” said RonNell Andersen Jones, a 1st Amendment scholar and distinguished professor in the college of law at the University of Utah, in an email.

“We see them asking at least some of these questions about the U.S. today,” she wrote.

Apprehension about the merger also extends beyond its implications for CNN and the media business.

Lawmakers such as Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale), Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) have raised concerns about how the consolidation of two major Hollywood studios could affect industry jobs and film and television production — which has significantly slowed since the pandemic, the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023 and corporate cutbacks in spending.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) called the deal an “antitrust disaster” that she feared could raise prices and limit choices for consumers.

“With the cloud of corruption looming over Trump’s Department of Justice, it’ll be up to the American people to speak up and state attorneys general to enforce the law,” she said in a statement.

Already, California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has said the merger isn’t a “done deal,” adding that he is in communication with other states attorneys general about the issue.

“As the epicenter of the entertainment industry, California has a special interest in protecting competition,” he posted Friday on X.

Ellison addressed some of these concerns in a statement Friday.

“By bringing together these world-class studios, our complementary streaming platforms, and the extraordinary talent behind them, we will create even greater value for audiences, partners and shareholders,” he said. “We couldn’t be more excited for what’s ahead.”

Times staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

As Paramount moved Monday to sweeten its bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a high-stakes political battle is playing out behind the scenes.

Paramount’s latest offer enhanced its earlier $30-a-share bid, valued at $108 billion, said a person familiar with the process who was not authorized to comment publicly. Details of the revised proposal, first reported by Bloomberg, were not immediately available.

The firm is leveraging both the dynastic wealth of Larry Ellison’s empire and his ties to the Trump administration to dismantle Netflix’s rival $82.7-billion deal for Warner, which owns CNN, HBO and the premier Hollywood film and television studios, according to people close to the auction.

Over the weekend, President Trump turned up the heat, demanding that Netflix “IMMEDIATELY” fire Susan Rice — a former Obama and Biden administration official — who serves on Netflix’s 13-member board or “pay the consequences.”

Trump, in a Saturday night social media post, called the former ambassador “deranged … She’s got no talent or skills — Purely a political hack!”

Trump previously said he would not get involved in the pivotal Warner Bros. auction, instead leaving the matter to the Department of Justice, which is investigating whether a Netflix takeover, or Paramount’s alternative bid, would harm competition. Trump has been an outspoken critic of CNN and many of its on-air hosts.

Netflix won the bidding for the storied studio and HBO in December, prompting the spurned Paramount executives to launch a multipronged strategy to scuttle the Netflix deal.

Netflix co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos sought to downplay the latest controversy, saying during a BBC interview Monday: “This is a business deal, it’s not a political deal.”

But Paramount, which declined to comment for this article, has not been shy about playing its political cards.

Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

The company, overseen by Larry Ellison’s son, David, is trying to convince Justice Department regulators and Warner Bros. shareholders that the Netflix deal is too dicey and that they should instead side with Paramount, said sources who were not authorized to comment publicly.

Paramount has attempted numerous maneuvers to gain the upper hand.

“This deal was never going to be decided on the merits of the offer or rigid antitrust considerations,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “This was a classic Trump administration deal where proximity to the president counts a lot more than financial terms.”

Trump’s Saturday night outburst came after Rice, during a podcast interview last week, said that “it is not going to end well” for corporations, media outlets and law firms that “bent the knee” to Trump should Democrats regain control in Washington.

The comments of Rice, a Netflix director for eight years, came as Paramount-owned CBS was involved in a headline-grabbing dust-up with late-night talk-show host, Stephen Colbert, over Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chair‘s threat to modify a rule requiring that broadcasters to give political candidates equal time. Colbert has accused his company of kowtowing to Trump, which CBS has denied.

Netflix’s Sarandos and Paramount’s David Ellison have made separate treks to the White House.

In October, Paramount hired a former Trump administration official, Makan Delrahim, who oversaw the Justice Department’s antitrust division during Trump’s first term, to quarterback Paramount’s campaign to win over regulators and politicians.

A formidable ally — Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) — recently visited Delrahim on Paramount’s Melrose Avenue lot in Los Angeles. While there, Cruz said he was a fan of the CBS show “NCIS,” which prompted Paramount executives to put together an impromptu tour of the “NCIS Origins” soundstages, according to a person familiar with the visit.

In December, Delrahim made a tactical move to apply for Justice Department approval of Paramount’s deal — despite the absence of a signed agreement with the Warner Bros. board and the consent of its shareholders. The gambit was meant to speed the agency’s approval should the Netflix deal crumble. Warner stockholders are expected to vote March 20.

Last week, Paramount announced that a major deadline had passed without pushback from the Justice Department. “There is no statutory impediment in the U.S. to closing Paramount’s proposed acquisition of WBD,” Paramount said in a regulatory filing.

Paramount faces a separate deadline late Monday to improve the finances of its proposed takeover to shake the support of Warner Bros. Discovery’s board members for the Netflix deal.

Paramount wants to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery, including CNN.

Netflix, in contrast, does not want the bulk of cable TV channels beyond HBO, and has offered $27.75 a share. It has the right to match any improved Paramount proposal.

Warner is planning to spin off the bulk of its channel portfolio, including HGTV, TBS and Cartoon Network, in a separate company. Its shareholders will receive stock in that entity, slated to be called Discovery Global.

Concerns over Netflix’s deal have been mounting.

Department of Justice regulators have sent inquiries to the three companies, according to one senior executive who was not authorized to speak publicly. The department is said to be looking at Netflix’s historic business strategy of steering most of its film releases to its streaming platform, often bypassing movie theaters. Sarandos has promised to maintain a 45-day theatrical window for Warner Bros. films.

Bloomberg has reported that regulators also are trying to determine whether Netflix has exerted leverage over creators in negotiations when acquiring programming to build its catalog.

This month, Republican lawmakers blasted Sarandos during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights hearing to explore antitrust implications of the Warner Bros. sale. Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) sent Netflix a series of pointed follow-up questions, including: “If allowed to proceed, what effect will the merger have on future competition?”

Ted Sarandos, left, and David Zaslav at the 2026 Golden Globes.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The hearing also veered into culture wars, with Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) suggesting Netflix was promoting a “transgender ideology” to children, which Sarandos denied.

Another Missouri Republican, Sen. Eric Schmitt, accused Netflix of making some of “the wokest content in the history of the world.”

“Netflix has no political agenda of any kind,” Sarandos told the lawmakers.

David Ellison also was invited to appear at the Feb. 3 hearing, but he declined — which raised the eyebrows of some members of the panel.

Skydance Media founder and Chief Executive David Ellison, who leads Paramount, is shown in 2023 in New York.

(Evan Agostini / Invision / Associated Press)

Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) challenged Ellison for failing to answer lawmakers’ questions under oath, including about his dealings with the president.

Ellison instead responded with a statement but Booker and other lawmakers wrote back, saying Ellison’s statement “failed to address” the issues raised by Booker.

“The pattern of evasion, combined with Paramount’s apparent confidence that a politically sensitive transaction will clear without difficulty warrants serious scrutiny,” Booker, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and others wrote in the Feb. 19 letter.

The Democrats instructed Ellison “to preserve records related to the proposed Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery transaction.”

The move came days after Gail Slater, the Justice Department’s antitrust chief, was bounced from her job, reportedly after becoming a thorn in the side of some business interests. Slater’s former top deputy, who also left the Justice Department, publicly warned that antitrust decisions are being influenced by corporate lobbyists — not in the interest of ordinary Americans.

“We see this happen again and again,” USC’s Kahn said.

“Let’s not forget that Larry Ellison’s Oracle was part of the consortium that purchased the U.S. operations of TikTok. Repeated complaints from the FCC about content at CBS have been heeded by the Ellison regime,” Kahn said, adding: “This is the reality of trying to do any business in the Trump administration: It’s about payoffs and proximity.”