Donald Trump told NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Llamas that he has decided that he “shouldn’t be involved” in his administration’s review of the Netflix–Warner Bros. merger or if Paramount succeeds in its hostile bid.
“I haven’t been involved,” Trump said in the Oval Office interview. “I must say, I guess I’m considered to be a very strong president. I’ve been called by both sides. It’s the two sides, but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will.”
Trump said that “there is a theory that one of the companies is too big, and it shouldn’t be allowed to do it. And the other company is saying something else.”
“They are beating the hell out of each other, and there will be a winner.”
Trump did not specify the companies that would be “too big.”
In comments to Deadline in December, Trump indicated that he would be involved in the government review of the transaction, breaking with along tradition of presidents keeping an arm’s length from DOJ antitrust reviews.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos testified on Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, in which he defended meeting with the president a couple weeks before the streaming giant’s deal for Warner Bros. was announced. Sarandos said that the potential transaction was a smaller part of his conversation with the president compared to broader issues about the entertainment industry, including production incentives, tariffs and runaway production.
Paramount has launched a hostile bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery, and was said to have had an advantage with the Trump administration, given the president’s close ties to Larry Ellison, an investor in the proposed deal and father of Paramount CEO David Ellison. Trump has praised David Ellison since Skydance closed its acquisition of Paramount Global.
The Justice Department Antitrust Division, led by Abigail Slater, is currently reviewing the transaction. Netflix officials have had discussions with DOJ attorneys, as have other groups that have concerns about the merger.
At the hearing, lawmakers in both parties expressed concerns over the size and power of a combined Netflix-Warner Bros. But Sarandos said that the merged company would be competing in a landscape that includes YouTube, which draws a larger share of viewer time.
Paramount’s chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, has challenged the notion that YouTube is a Netflix rival. In a letter to lawmakers last month, Delrahim wrote that the broader market definition was “tortured and absurd” and something that “no serious regulator would ever accept.”
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