Axing CNN Hosts Discussed with White House in Warner Bros Takeover Bid

Lar­ry Elli­son dis­cussed CNN pro­gram­ming changes with White House offi­cials dur­ing the Warn­er Bros Dis­cov­ery takeover bid. On 20 Novem­ber 2025, The Guardian report­ed that Elli­son, the largest share­hold­er of Para­mount, engaged in dia­logue about pos­si­bly axing CNN hosts includ­ing Erin Bur­nett and Bri­an­na Keilar, whom Trump loathes. The arti­cle begins:

Senior White House offi­cials have dis­cussed inter­nal­ly their pref­er­ence for Para­mount Sky­dance to acquire Warn­er Bros Dis­cov­ery in recent weeks, and one offi­cial has dis­cussed poten­tial pro­gram­ming changes at CNN with Lar­ry Elli­son, the largest share­hold­er of Para­mount. The dis­cus­sions, accord­ing to peo­ple famil­iar with the mat­ter, come as Para­mount por­trays itself as the best bid for Warn­er Bros Dis­cov­ery, after the com­pa­ny announced last month it was open to offers, because it would have an eas­i­er time get­ting through reg­u­la­to­ry review.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/nov/20/warner-bros-discovery-takeover-paramount-skydance-larry-ellison

Key Points

• Elli­son engaged in phone call dia­logue about pos­si­bly axing CNN hosts, includ­ing Erin Bur­nett and Bri­an­na Keilar, whom Don­ald Trump loathes, with con­ver­sa­tion touch­ing on float­ing replace­ment names and the pos­si­bil­i­ty of run­ning CBS assets like 60 Min­utes on CNN air, ani­mat­ing White House.
• Senior White House offi­cials dis­cussed inter­nal­ly a pref­er­ence for Para­mount Sky­dance to acquire Warn­er Bros Dis­cov­ery, with behind-the-scenes lob­by­ing efforts under­scor­ing Ellison’s intense inter­est in the acqui­si­tion and White House­’s inter­est in see­ing the pre­ferred bid succeed.
• Trump already has a pos­i­tive view of Elli­son after Para­mount paid a $16 mil­lion set­tle­ment to the pres­i­dent over an inter­view 60 Min­utes did with Kamala Har­ris last year, with addi­tion­al back­ing from White House offi­cials smooth­ing over hur­dles to Para­moun­t’s bid.
• Mul­ti­ple cur­rent and for­mer con­sul­tants in Wash­ing­ton, includ­ing peo­ple now work­ing inside White House, used to have con­tracts with Ora­cle, where Lar­ry Elli­son is exec­u­tive chair­man, pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al ties into Trump’s orbit, ben­e­fit­ing the Para­mount bid.

Trump Mirrors Orbán’s Authoritarian Playbook: FCC Pressure Tactics and the Global National Conservative Alliance

Pres­i­dent Trump’s pres­sure cam­paigns against Amer­i­can media fol­low tac­tics pio­neered by Hun­gar­i­an Prime Min­is­ter Vik­tor Orbán, who spent fif­teen years sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cap­tur­ing Hun­gary’s media through reg­u­la­to­ry weaponiza­tion and finan­cial coer­cion. When FCC Chair­man Bren­dan Carr threat­ened ABC’s broad­cast license over Jim­my Kim­mel’s mono­logue, prompt­ing the net­work’s sus­pen­sion of the late-night host, democ­ra­cy schol­ars imme­di­ate­ly rec­og­nized the pat­tern. For­mer FCC offi­cial Gigi Sohn stat­ed that Car­r’s use of “the bul­ly pul­pit to essen­tial­ly intim­i­date a major net­work” was unprece­dent­ed. George­town pro­fes­sor Gábor Scheir­ing, who wit­nessed Orbán’s pow­er plays as a Hun­gar­i­an par­lia­men­tar­i­an, told CNN that ABC’s capit­u­la­tion “reeks of Orbanism.”

The Trump-Orbán con­nec­tion oper­ates through estab­lished chan­nels with­in the Glob­al Nation­al Con­ser­v­a­tive Alliance. Hun­gary’s Math­ias Corv­i­nus Col­legium main­tains for­mal coop­er­a­tion with the Her­itage Foun­da­tion, whose Project 2025 blue­print mir­rors Orbán’s strate­gies for insti­tu­tion­al cap­ture. At CPAC Hun­gary, Amer­i­can con­ser­v­a­tives exchange tac­tics with Hun­gar­i­an offi­cials, with Trump prais­ing Orbán as “a great man” while Orbán pro­claimed “a Trump tsuna­mi swept through the entire world.” Both lead­ers tar­get civ­il soci­ety: Hun­gary estab­lished sov­er­eign­ty pro­tec­tion mea­sures against for­eign-fund­ed NGOs while Trump’s admin­is­tra­tion dis­man­tled USAID and brand­ed democ­ra­cy pro­mo­tion orga­ni­za­tions as regime change appa­ra­tus.

The oper­a­tional mechan­ics reveal sophis­ti­cat­ed pres­sure with­out direct cen­sor­ship orders. Carr—who wrote the FCC chap­ter for Project 2025—has launched inves­ti­ga­tions against near­ly every major broad­cast net­work, while sta­tion own­ers Nexs­tar and Sin­clair, both seek­ing merg­er approvals requir­ing FCC bless­ing, rushed to pull Kim­mel’s pro­gram. Democ­ra­cy schol­ars rate Amer­i­ca’s decline as pre­cip­i­tous, drop­ping from 67 to 55 points. The ACLU warned that Trump offi­cials “are repeat­ed­ly abus­ing their pow­er to stop ideas they don’t like,” rep­re­sent­ing com­pet­i­tive author­i­tar­i­an­ism through transat­lantic coor­di­na­tion between Amer­i­can and Euro­pean far-right movements.

Exter­nal References:

• Trump’s anti-media blitz that led to Kim­mel’s sus­pen­sion is straight from the Vik­tor Orbán play­book — CNN
• FCC chair Bren­dan Carr leads Trump’s charge against the media — NPR
• Gov­ern­ment Pres­sure to Sus­pend Jim­my Kim­mel Was an Abuse of Pow­er — ACLU

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