US President Donald Trump warned Nicolas Maduro to ‘not play tough’ and to step down on Monday, while the Venezuelan leader said Trump should focus on the issues in his own country. Trump told reporters the US will keep 1.9 million barrels of oil that were seized near Venezuela in December.
Published On 23 Dec 202523 Dec 2025
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Warner Bros. Discovery has sharply rejected Paramount’s latest offer, alleging the Larry Ellison family has failed to put real money behind Paramount’s $78-billion bid for Warner’s legendary movie studio, HBO and CNN.
Paramount “has consistently misled WBD shareholders that its proposed transaction has a ‘full backstop’ from the Ellison family,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s board wrote in a Wednesday letter to its shareholders filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission.
“It does not, and never has,” the Warner board said.
For Warner, what was missing was a clear declaration from Paramount that the Ellison family had agreed to commit funding for the deal. A Paramount representative was not immediately available for comment Wednesday.
The Warner auction has taken a nasty turn. Last week, Paramount launched a hostile takeover campaign for Warner after losing the bidding war to Netflix. Warner board members unanimously approved Netflix’s $72-billion deal for the Warner Bros. film and television studios, HBO and HBO Max.
In its letter, the Warner board reaffirmed its support for Netflix’s proposal, saying it represented the best deal for shareholders. Warner board members urged investors not to tender their shares to Paramount.
Board members said they were concerned that Paramount’s financing was shaky and the Ellison family’s assurances were far from ironclad. Warner also said Paramount’s proposal contained troubling caveats, such as language in its documents that said Paramount “reserve[d] the right to amend the offer in any respect.”
The Warner board argued that its shareholders could be left holding the bag.
Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison has argued his $78-billion deal is superior to Netflix’s proposal.
(Evan Agostini / Evan Agostini/invision/ap)
Paramount Chairman David Ellison has championed Paramount’s strength in recent weeks saying his company’s bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, which includes HBO, CNN and the Warner Bros. film and television studios, was backed by his wealthy family, headed by his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men.
In its letter last week to shareholders, asking for their support, Ellison wrote that Paramount delivered “an equity commitment from the Ellison family trust, which contains over $250 billion of assets,” including more than 1 billion Oracle shares.
In regulatory filings, Paramount disclosed that, for the equity portion of the deal, it planned to rely on $24 billion from sovereign wealth funds representing the royal families of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi as well as $11.8 billion from the Ellison family (which also holds the controlling shares in Paramount). This week, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner’s Affinity Partners private equity firm pulled out of Paramount’s financing team.
Paramount’s bid would also need more than $60 billion in debt financing.
Paramount has made six offers for Warner Bros., and its “most recent proposal includes a $40.65 billion equity commitment, for which there is no Ellison family commitment of any kind,” the Warner board wrote.
“Instead, they propose that [shareholders] rely on an unknown and opaque revocable trust for the certainty of this crucial deal funding,” the board said.
Throughout the negotiations, Paramount, which trades under the PSKY ticker, failed to present a solid financing commitment from Larry Ellison — despite Warner’s bankers telling them that one was necessary, the board said.
“Despite … their own ample resources, as well as multiple assurances by PSKY during our strategic review process that such a commitment was forthcoming – the Ellison family has chosen not to backstop the PSKY offer,” Warner’s board wrote.
Board members argued that a revocable trust could always be changed. “A revocable trust is no replacement for a secured commitment by a controlling stockholder,” according to the board letter.
David Ellison has insisted Paramount’s Dec. 4 offer of $30 a share was superior to Netflix’s winning bid. Paramount wants to buy all of Warner Bros. Discovery, while Netflix has made a deal to take Warner’s studios, its spacious lot in Burbank, HBO and HBO Max streaming service.
Paramount’s lawyers have argued that Warner tipped the auction to favor Netflix.
Paramount, which until recently enjoyed warm relations with President Trump, has long argued that its deal represents a more certain path to gain regulatory approvals. Trump’s Department of Justice would consider any anti-trust ramifications of the deal, and in the past, Trump has spoken highly of the Ellisons.
However, Warner’s board argued that Paramount might be providing too rosy a view.
“Despite PSKY’s media statements to the contrary, the Board does not believe there is a material difference in regulatory risk between the PSKY offer and the Netflix merger,” the Warner board wrote. “The Board carefully considered the federal, state, and international regulatory risks for both the Netflix merger and the PSKY offer with its regulatory advisors.”
The board noted that Netflix agreed to pay a record $5.8 billion if its deal fails to clear the regulatory hurdles.
Paramount has offered a $5 billion termination fee.
Should Warner abandon the transaction with Netflix, it would owe Netflix a $2.8 billion break-up fee.
Warner also pointed to Paramount’s promises to Wall Street that it would shave $9 billion in costs from the combined companies. Paramount is in the process of making $3 billion in cuts since the Ellison family and RedBird Capital Partners took the helm of the company in August.
Paramount has promised another $6 billion in cuts should it win Warner Bros.
“These targets are both ambitious from an operational perspective and would make Hollywood weaker, not stronger,” the Warner board wrote.
A Canadian lawmaker who was denied entry to the occupied West Bank, alongside fellow politicians and civil society leaders, has dismissed Israel’s claims that the delegation posed a threat to public safety.
Jenny Kwan, a Canadian MP with the left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP), questioned whether Canada’s recognition of an independent Palestinian state earlier this year contributed to Israel’s decision to block the group.
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“How is it that members of parliament are a public safety concern?” she said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “How is it that civil society organisations who are doing humanitarian work… [are] a security concern?”
Kwan and five other MPs were among 30 Canadian delegates denied entry to the Israeli-occupied West Bank on Tuesday after Israel deemed them a risk to public safety.
The delegation, organised by nonprofit group The Canadian-Muslim Vote, was turned back to Jordan at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing, which connects Jordan with the West Bank and is controlled by Israel on the Palestinian side, after an hours-long security check.
Kwan said another female MP in the group was “manhandled” by Israeli border agents while attempting to keep an eye on a delegate who was being taken for additional interrogation.
“She was shoved – not once, not twice, but multiple times – by border agents there,” Kwan said. “A member of parliament was handled in that way – If you were just an everyday person, what else could have happened?”
The delegates had been expected to meet with Palestinian community members to discuss daily realities in the West Bank, where residents have faced a surge in Israeli military and settler violence.
They were also planning to meet with Jewish families affected by the conflict, said Kwan, who described the three-day trip as a fact-finding mission.
“I reject the notion that that is a public safety concern,” she said of the delegation’s mission.
Global Affairs Canada, the country’s Foreign Ministry, did not respond to Al Jazeera’s questions about the incident.
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand said on Tuesday afternoon that the ministry was in contact with the delegation and had “expressed Canada’s objections regarding the mistreatment of these Canadians while attempting to cross”.
The Israeli military did not respond to Al Jazeera’s repeated requests for comment.
In a statement to Canada’s public broadcaster CBC News, the Israeli military agency that oversees affairs in the occupied Palestinian territory, COGAT, said the Canadian delegates were turned back because they arrived “without prior coordination”.
COGAT also said the group’s members were “denied for security reasons”.
But the delegates said they had applied for, and received, Israel Electronic Travel Authorization permits before they reached the crossing. Kwan also said the Canadian government informed Israel ahead of time of the delegation’s plans.
“I’m not quite sure exactly what kind of coordination is required,” Kwan told Al Jazeera.
“We followed every step that we’re supposed to follow, so I’m not quite sure exactly what they mean or what they’re referring to.”
Canada, a longstanding supporter of Israel, faced the ire of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after it joined several European allies in recognising an independent Palestinian state in September.
“Israel will not allow you to shove a terror state down our throats,” Netanyahu said in a speech at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City.
The recognition came after months of mass protests in Canada and other Western countries demanding an end to Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 people since October 2023.
Rights advocates also called for action to stem a surge in deadly Israeli violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Against that backdrop, members of the Canadian delegation questioned whether their entry refusal was part of an Israeli effort to prevent people from witnessing what is happening on the ground in the Palestinian territory.
“‘What are they trying to hide?’ is the question that comes to mind,” Fawad Kalsi, the CEO of the relief group Penny Appeal Canada and one of the delegates, told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.
Kwan, the Canadian MP, raised a similar question, saying, “If people cannot witness” what is happening on the ground in the West Bank, “then misinformation and disinformation will continue”.
She added that she also saw foreign doctors being turned back to Jordan at the King Hussein (Allenby) Bridge crossing as they tried to bring medicine and baby formula into the West Bank.
“If we as members of parliament could face denial of entry,” she said, “imagine what is going on on the ground with other people, and the difficulties that they face, that we do not know about.”
WASHINGTON — The Senate on Thursday rejected legislation to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, essentially guaranteeing that millions of Americans will see a steep rise in costs at the beginning of the year.
Senators rejected a Democratic bill to extend the subsidies for three years and a Republican alternative that would have created new health savings accounts — an unceremonious end to a monthslong effort by Democrats to prevent the COVID-19-era subsidies from expiring on Jan. 1.
Ahead of the votes, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned Republicans that if they did not vote to extend the tax credits, “there won’t be another chance to act,” before premiums rise for many people who buy insurance off the ACA marketplaces.
“Let’s avert a disaster,” Schumer said. “The American people are watching.”
Republicans have argued that Affordable Care Act plans are too expensive and need to be overhauled. The health savings accounts in the GOP bill would give money directly to consumers instead of to insurance companies, an idea that has been echoed by President Trump. But Democrats immediately rejected the plan, saying that the accounts wouldn’t be enough to cover costs for most consumers.
Some Republicans have pushed their colleagues to extend the credits, including Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who said they should vote for a short-term extension so they can find agreement on the issue next year. “It’s too complicated and too difficult to get done in the limited time that we have left,” Tillis said Wednesday.
But despite the bipartisan desire to continue the credits, Republicans and Democrats have never engaged in meaningful or high-level negotiations on a solution, even after a small group of centrist Democrats struck a deal with Republicans last month to end the 43-day government shutdown in exchange for a vote on extending the ACA subsidies. Most Democratic lawmakers opposed the move as many Republicans made clear that they wanted the tax credits to expire.
The deal raised hopes for bipartisan compromise on healthcare. But that quickly faded with a lack of any real bipartisan talks.
The dueling Senate votes are the latest political messaging exercise in a Congress that has operated almost entirely on partisan terms, as Republicans pushed through a massive tax and spending cuts bill this summer using budget maneuvers that eliminated the need for Democratic votes. They also tweaked Senate rules to push past a Democratic blockade of all of Trump’s nominees.
The votes were also the latest failed salvo in the debate over the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature law that Democrats passed along party lines in 2010 to expand access to insurance coverage.
Republicans have tried unsuccessfully since then to repeal or overhaul the law, arguing that healthcare is still too expensive. But they have struggled to find an alternative. In the meantime, Democrats have made the policy a central political issue in several elections, betting that the millions of people who buy healthcare on the government marketplaces want to keep their coverage.
“When people’s monthly payments spike next year, they’ll know it was Republicans that made it happen,” Schumer said in November, while making clear that Democrats would not seek compromise.
Even if they view it as a political win, the failed votes are a loss for Democrats who demanded an extension of the benefits as they forced a government shutdown for six weeks in October and November — and for the millions of people facing premium increases on Jan. 1.
Maine Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said the group tried to negotiate with Republicans after the shutdown ended. But, he said, the talks became unproductive when Republicans demanded language adding new limits for abortion coverage that were a “red line” for Democrats. He said Republicans were going to “own these increases.”
Republicans have used the looming expiration of the subsidies to renew their longstanding criticisms of the ACA, also called Obamacare, and to try, once more, to agree on what should be done.
Thune announced earlier this week that the GOP conference had decided to vote on the bill led by Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee, and Idaho Sen. Mike Crapo, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, even as several Republican senators proposed alternate ideas.
In the House, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has promised a vote next week. Republicans weighed different options in a conference meeting on Wednesday, with no apparent consensus.
Republican moderates in the House who could have competitive reelection bids next year are pushing Johnson to find a way to extend the subsidies. But more conservative members want to see the law overhauled.
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) has pushed for a temporary extension, which he said could be an opening to take further steps on healthcare.
If they fail to act and healthcare costs go up, the approval rating for Congress “will get even lower,” Kiley said.
Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.