Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin has penned a letter to Paramount CEO David Ellison accusing him of colluding with President Trump to “curtail media
independence, spread political censorship, and suppress dissent” as it seeks to close a pending $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery.
In the letter, Raskin references a Wall Street Journal report that Ellison offered assurances to the administration that he’d make sweeping changes to CNN if he was able to acquire the network, which Paramount has denied.
“President Trump has made clear he wants both ‘new ownership as well as changes to CNN programming’,” Raskin wrote.”You have eagerly shown the President that you are going to deliver on both counts as if you are controlling organs of state media.”
In a recent New York Times op-ed, Ellison broke his silence about a lawsuit from a group of 12 state attorneys general seeking to block the merger, arguing that it’s about his ownership of CNN.
At the time, he noted that he does not aspire to lead CBS or CNN to “bend their newsrooms to my views.” He also said that news should be based on facts and truth and that CNN would remain independent and “continue to answer to the facts and to all the people they serve — not to any party or cause.”
Despite these commitments, Raskin argued that Ellison’s CBS takeover “already tells a sharply different story.”
“Your company appears to be colluding with the Trump Administration to promote political and ideological censorship at every turn by stifling, revising, or censoring any news stories that depart from the official government orthodoxy dictated by President Trump. CBS’s own reporters have shared how, under your leadership, the newsroom has catered to President Trump’s political whims and dictates under the watchful eye of a MAGA minder,” he wrote. “You are creating a media environment conducive to the kinds of authoritarian regimes President Trump favors, like those found in Vladimir Putin’s Russia, Kim Jong Un’s North Korea, or Xi Jinping’s China.”
Over the past 12 months, Raskin says Ellison has failed to respond to four letters seeking answers about the Paramount Skydance and Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger and the collusion allegations.
He warned that the House Judiciary Committee is committed to scrutinizing how antitrust laws are being being enforced to promote the public interest, how market power abuses may be harming not only competition but consumers, workers, and the public generally, and whether the federal antitrust agencies are successfully promoting free competition and innovation or using governmental powers to “distort the market and undermine freedom of speech and freedom of the press, in violation of the First Amendment.”
“Now that you have vowed to break your long silence, I invite you to a transcribed interview to tell Congress and America your story and answer the Committee’s questions about your Donald Trump-enabled shopping spree to consolidate news organizations, movie studios, cable channels, and streaming services,” he added.
The letter sets a deadline of no later than 5 p.m. on Aug. 26 to schedule the interview.
A spokesperson for Paramount referred TheWrap to comments made by Chief Legal Officer’s Makan Delrahim at a Politico conference on Tuesday in which he said there is “no corruption here.”
“We’d be happy to engage with Congressman Raskin and provide him as we have information,” Delrahim added. “We respect his role and his important role in oversight. But just because he said so doesn’t mean that there is any corruption.”
He added that Republicans and Democrats, as well as international politicians and policymakers from both sides of the political aisle are “very excited” about the merger. Delrahim also tried to distance Paramount and CBS from Trump, pointing to his previous comment that the network’s owners are “no friends of mine.”
“We have been completely transparent,” Delrahim concluded. “But what David wants to do with CNN is he wants to bring it back to news.”
The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger is currently on hold as it heads to trial in March 2027. Paramount has agreed to push the merger’s closing until five days after the outcome of a trial, or June 1, 2027, whichever comes earliest. But Ellison and Delrahim have also said “all options are on the table” in order to clear the deal.
While the pair is open to a settlement to resolve the lawsuit and allow the merger to go through, Ellison has also threatened to move the company’s operations out of California if Attorney General Rob Bonta does not come to the table by Oct. 1, when Paramount will start incurring a 25 cent per share ticking fee that translates to $7 million per day or $650 million per quarter until the deal is closed.
At the same Politico conference, Bonta called the threat of a move “blackmail” and said that he is open to settlement talks, but that Paramount will have to propose structural remedies, such as divestments, rather than behavioral remedies, like Ellison’s pledge for 30 theatrical film releases per year. He also reiterated that a sale of CNN is not enough on its own to satisfy the states’ concerns.
“I think they’re eager to enter those talks and we are very happy with where we are,” Bonta said. “We’re confident in our case. We will prepare and be ready to go to trial. And if they, in good faith and sincerely, want to talk about settlement with us, of course we will be open to any proposals they want to propose to us. But right now, we’re focused on litigation and going to trial.”
