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Kushner Role in Paramount Scheme Shows US 'Devolving Into Caricature of Crony Capitalism'
"The Warner Bros. merger was already suspect, but now Trump’s family is getting in on the act," said one Democratic senator.
Dec 09, 2025
The revelation that Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, is playing a key role in Paramount Skydance's hostile bid for Warner Bros. Discovery underscores the extent to which the current administration's open corruption "is fundamentally distorting economic and governmental policymaking at the direct expense of the interests of the American people," a watchdog group said Tuesday.
Kushner's private equity firm, Affinity Partner, is listed in a regulatory filing as one of the organizations financing Paramount's $108 billion bid for Warner Bros., which owns CNN. Ethics experts say Kushner's involvement represents another glaring conflict of interest on top of preexisting concerns about the bid, stemming from Trump's relationship with Paramount CEO David Ellison and his billionaire father, GOP megadonor Larry Ellison.
"America is devolving into a caricature of crony capitalism," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement Tuesday. "Factions aiming to shrink media competition are fighting over who can show the greatest fealty to Donald Trump. Paramount seems to have won the prize, bringing in presidential son-in-law Jared Kushner—whose investment vehicle is flush with Saudi funds, deposited only because of his personal relationship with Donald Trump—as a partner."
"A working antitrust policy would block the merger of Warner Bros. Discovery with one of the existing media goliaths. It would never be influenced by personal connections to the president," Weissman added. "This case underscores that the corruption pervading the Trump administration isn’t just about making Trump and his family and hangers-on ever richer. That corruption is fundamentally distorting economic and governmental policy making, at the direct expense of the interests of the American people.”
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said that "the Warner Bros. merger was already suspect, but now Trump’s family is getting in on the act."
"Paramount already had deep ties to the White House," he added, "now Trump's family will directly profit if they win."
Asked Monday about Kushner's financing role, Trump said he has "never spoken to him about it."
Paramount, which the Trump administration reportedly favored to take over Warner Bros., announced its bid for the company days after the streaming behemoth Netflix and Warner Bros. leadership reached an $83 billion acquisition deal. The president immediately criticized the Netflix agreement and pledged to intervene in the federal review process.
"The blurred line between running the government and the family's business interests is expanding each day," Scott Amey, general counsel with the Project On Government Oversight, told Reuters.
Antitrust experts and advocates have argued that both of the proposed mergers are likely illegal and should be blocked.
Matt Stoller, research director at the American Economic Liberties Project, said Monday that either merger "would further deepen the media consolidation crisis that is eroding our creative economy and freedom of expression."
"Paramount specifically would be well-positioned to manipulate the news to please the president, which David Ellison made clear it intends to do in an interview earlier today," said Stoller. "There is a reason that policymakers and workers in Hollywood have come out against each iteration of this deal. Rather than allowing further consolidation in the industry, policymakers must reregulate the market with prohibitions on vertical integration.”
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Critics Warn of ‘Catastrophic’ Threat If Netflix Acquires Warner Bros.
"The threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself," warned actress Jane Fonda.
Dec 05, 2025
Netflix announced a deal Friday to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery’s film studio and streaming business for $83 billion, a merger that—if approved by the Trump administration—would create a media behemoth that critics say threatens industry competition, higher costs for consumers, the rights of entertainment workers, and democracy.
Netflix, the largest streaming company in the world, and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD), owner of the third-largest streaming platform HBO Max, unveiled the proposed agreement after a closely watched bidding war that included Paramount Skydance, the company that the Trump administration reportedly favored to acquire WBD. Paramount is owned by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Republican megadonor Larry Ellison—a close ally of President Donald Trump.
David Ellison reportedly met with Trump administration officials on Thursday to "press his case" against Netflix's pending acquisition of WBD. An unnamed senior official told CNBC on Friday that the Trump administration is treating the Netflix-WBD deal with "heavy skepticism."
While some expressed relief that Paramount appears—at least for now—to have lost the bid for Warner Bros., antitrust advocates argued such a view overlooks the much broader and more serious threat of corporate consolidation.
"Does anyone think Netflix won’t do what Trump wants to get their deal through?" asked Matt Stoller, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. "The threat to democracy isn’t the Ellisons, it’s media consolidation."
The American Prospect's David Dayen expressed a similar sentiment, writing on social media: "Keeping WBD out of Paramount's hands is good. Putting it in Netflix's is still unlawful consolidation though. This is the #1 streamer merging with #3. State enforcers should speak up."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend."
In a newsletter post following news of the merger agreement, Stoller argued the Netflix-WBD deal is plainly illegal under the Clayton Antitrust Act and "a recipe for monopolization."
"The ideal scenario now is a trial that puts the secrets of Hollywood executives and financiers on display, and crushes the financiers who think mergers are the only move in business," Stoller wrote. "Then Hollywood can get back to the business of making good TV shows and movies."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said that "this deal looks like an anti-monopoly nightmare."
"A Netflix-Warner Bros. would create one massive media giant with control of close to half of the streaming market," said Warren. "It could force you into higher prices, fewer choices over what and how you watch, and may put American workers at risk."
"Under Donald Trump, the antitrust review process has also become a cesspool of political favoritism and corruption," the senator continued. "The Justice Department must enforce our nation’s anti-monopoly laws fairly and transparently—not use the Warner Bros. deal review to invite influence-peddling and bribery."
Ahead of the announcement, major figures in the entertainment industry sounded alarm over the possibility of a Netflix takeover of WBD. In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, a group of film producers warned that Neflix would "effectively hold a noose around the theatrical marketplace" if it acquired WBD.
The Writers’ Guild of America, which represents film and TV writers, has said it would oppose WBD merging with any "major studio or streamer," warning it "would be a disaster for writers, for consumers, and for competition."
"Merger after merger in the media industry has harmed workers, diminished competition and free speech, and wasted hundreds of billions of dollars better invested in organic growth," the union said in a recent statement.
Jane Fonda, the renowned actress and activist, wrote Thursday that "the threat of this merger in any form is an alarming escalation in a consolidation crisis that threatens the entire entertainment industry, the public it serves, and—potentially—the First Amendment itself."
"Consolidation at this scale would be catastrophic for an industry built on free expression, for the creative workers who power it, and for consumers who depend on a free, independent media ecosystem to understand the world," Fonda wrote. "It will mean fewer jobs, fewer opportunities to sell work, fewer creative risks, fewer news sources, and far less diversity in the stories Americans get to hear."
"If we don’t speak now, we may have no industry—and no democracy—left to defend," she added.
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Bari Weiss: Bounds of ‘Acceptable Debate’ at CBS News Will Range From Alan Dershowitz to Dana Loesch
"After years of complaining that there wasn't enough viewpoint diversity in acceptable media discourse, Bari Weiss now appears to suggest that there's too much," said one critic.
Nov 25, 2025
Since Paramount's new Trump-aligned billionaire owner, David Ellison, installed the right-wing pundit Bari Weiss as the editor-in-chief of CBS News, fear has abounded about how she might attempt to reshape the network to fit her worldview.
Weiss once fashioned herself as a champion of "ideological diversity," in contrast to what she deemed a takeover of academia and media by intolerant "woke" types who'd fostered an "illiberal" atmosphere of political conformity.
But now that she's at the helm of one of America's most storied news organizations, she seems to view her role much differently.
During a panel at the Jewish Leadership Conference, a gathering of conservative and pro-Israel Jewish figures, this week Weiss laid out her goals for how she plans to use her powerful position.
"I think it's about who's in the room," Weiss said. "I think it's about redrawing the lines of what falls in the 40-yard lines of acceptable debate and acceptable American politics and culture."
She said her goal for the network is to create a new form of "centrist" news, not by adopting a dispassionate "voice from nowhere," but by amplifying people who are "clearly and identifiably on the center-left and the center-right in conversation with one another."
"This is an opportunity to speak for the 75%, for the people that are on the center-left and the center-right," Weiss said.
Weiss gave an example of two figures she thought would represent this paradigm: "I was in... Chicago last week... where Dana Loesch, former spokeswoman for the [National Rifle Association], was debating Alan Dershowitz on guns. Now, these are people who have wildly different opinions on the Second Amendment, and yet showing they can have good faith, very passionate, very charismatic disagreement, and still like each other at the end of the day is very important."
Weiss contrasted these preferred figures with those "rising in the podcast charts," whom she said "don't represent the values and the worldview of the vast majority of Americans." These included pundits on the extreme right like Nick Fuentes and Andrew Tate, who have expressed overt Nazi sympathies, as well as former Fox News host-turned independent podcaster Tucker Carlson, who has given each of these men friendly interviews.
But she also mentioned Hasan Piker, a popular left-wing Twitch streamer who has faced accusations of antisemitism, including from members of Congress, for his denunciation of Israel's "genocide" in Gaza, which has resulted in the death or injury of more than 10% people living in the strip over the past two years. Piker has called antisemitism "completely unacceptable," adding that he finds "the conflation of antisemitism and anti-Zionism to be very dangerous."
what makes this funnier is that her outlet cbs news is currently trying to set up a debate with me ?! https://t.co/FuGjZnK0CH
— hasanabi (@hasanthehun) November 25, 2025
One critic on social media wrote that "after years of complaining that there wasn't enough viewpoint diversity in acceptable media discourse, Bari Weiss now appears to suggest that there's too much."
While Weiss said she does not mean for her narrowing of the discourse to be done in a "censorious, gatekeeping way," Weiss has long been criticized for her attempts to silence critics of Israel.
As David Klion wrote in the Guardian in September, Weiss' publication, the Free Press, which Ellison purchased in September for an eye-popping $150 million, has championed the second Trump administration's efforts to force institutions of higher learning to crack down on anti-Israel speech on college campuses, which it has portrayed as part of a crusade against "antisemitism."
"The pattern is clear: If you work at a liberal institution and you want the Trump-controlled federal government to step in and discipline it, Bari Weiss is there to help," Klion wrote.
Prior to Weiss' ascendance, CBS News and other major networks had already faced scrutiny for their near-total lack of Palestinian perspectives in their coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. In December 2024, Adam Johnson reported in the Nation that across the major Sunday shows on NBC, ABC, CNN, and CBS, there had been 2,557 mentions of Gaza since October 7, 2023, but only one Palestinian guest had appeared across all four of them, while Israeli guests had been featured 20 times.
Staffers at CBS have raised concerns about Weiss having an even more aggressive "hall monitor" approach to policing coverage in her new position. Critics say that her singling out of Dershowitz and Loesch as representatives for the bounds of acceptable opinion suggests that she will pursue rigid ideological conformity at the network.
"Everyone Bari Weiss thinks is too extreme to be included always has one thing in common: opposition to Israel," noted independent journalist Glenn Greenwald.
"Hey, I know what the kids want more of right now: Alan Dershowitz!"
— John Ganz (@lionel_trolling) November 25, 2025
As other critics noted, Dershowitz and Loesch are not figures that many would associate with the "center-left" and the "center-right" as Weiss claims.
While the clear majority of Democratic voters now believe Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, Dershowitz—who left the party to become an independent last year—has referred to such accusations as antisemitic "blood libel," and denounced protesters against Israel's military campaign as the equivalent of "Hitler Youth."
The lawyer has also defended many of the most egregious actions by Israel, including its attacks on hospitals, which have killed over 1,400 people according to UN figures from August: "Sometimes attacking a hospital saves lives," was the title of one video he published on November 16, 2023.
"If you’re going to redraw the lines to square up more with what 75% of Americans believe, how are you going to cover aid to Israel, which is wildly unpopular among that 75%?" one social media user wrote in response to Weiss, referencing recent polls showing that the vast majority of Americans now disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza.
Loesch, meanwhile, is far from a moderate or a cordial participant in polite disagreement. She is widely credited with helping to morph the NRA from purely a gun advocacy group into a vehicle for a broader right-wing culture war.
She has personally described gun safety advocates as “tragedy dry-humping whores,” and the political left as "godless." Meanwhile, she's appeared to threaten journalists explicitly, saying they "need to be curb-stomped," after previously calling them "the rat bastards of the Earth" and "the boil on the backside of American politics."
The example Bari Weiss gave of the "charismatic" mainstream debates she believes will revitalize CBS -- namely, the gun control debate she arranged between Alan Dershowitz and Dana Loesch -- has so far been watched by a grand total of 860 people in the 5 hours since posting: https://t.co/hZp1bBbfe9 pic.twitter.com/osN4CwD9nY
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) November 25, 2025
Rather than reflecting the consensus of American opinion, Greenwald noted, the "charismatic" conversation between Dershowitz and Loesch on gun control had garnered a grand total of 860 views on YouTube within five hours of being posted.
"I’ve been writing about elite vs. popular politics for a long time," said Zachary D. Carter, a senior reporter at HuffPost. "[I] don’t think I’ve ever seen elite consensus more disconnected from public reality."
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