View / In mad dash to stop Netflix-WBD deal, Paramount has ‘no juice’

In the days and hours before Netflix announced a deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, allies of Paramount owner David Ellison sought the one thing that they thought could stop it: a public statement from President Donald Trump opposing the deal.

Trump demurred. They had to settle for a string of anonymous gripes from administration officials, channeled through the New York Post’s irrepressible Charlie Gasparino.

The message those anonymous quotes sent was two-sided, a well-placed MAGA lawyer notes: that Republicans hate the deal, and that “Ellison does not have that much juice.”

Everyone hates the Netflix deal — creatives facing a monopsony; arbitrageurs worried it won’t close; Democrats wary of consolidation; and rightists who view Netflix as the last FAANG company whose executives haven’t publicly kneeled, and paid, for MAGA peace.

But it turns out, as Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw scooped, that Netflix’s Ted Sarandos had played a subtler private game with Trump, who is often loath to let outsiders profit by trading on his name. And now the Ellisons and the Washington right are scrambling to figure out what comes next.

With or without a push from Trump, the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission could sue on traditional anti-monopoly grounds — claiming that streaming services constitute a market, and that the merged company would have too much power over consumers. The Ellisons must also reverse course and ensure that Trump doesn’t attack Netflix on Truth Social. A statement that could have blocked the deal could now weigh against the government in court.

Netflix and WBD, too, may have a way out in today’s openly politicized regulatory environment, the lawyer suggested: “The way they don’t get sued is by spinning off CNN to a conservative.”