Opinion
Michelle
Goldberg
A Setback
for the MAGA Media Takeover
July 27,
2026
Michelle
Goldberg
By
Michelle Goldberg
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/27/opinion/media-ellison-paramount.html
Opinion
Columnist
In April,
the attorney Norm Eisen was on his way into the Supreme Court as part of the
legal team fighting to preserve birthright citizenship when he got a text from
the actor Mark Ruffalo.
Along
with several others in the entertainment industry, Ruffalo was searching for
some way to stop the pending merger between Paramount and Warner Bros., which
would leave the MAGA suck-up David Ellison in charge of two of the big five
major movie studios, as well as HBO Max and CNN. After acquiring Paramount,
CBS’s parent company, in 2025, Ellison delighted Donald Trump by installing the
anti-woke editor Bari Weiss atop the network, throwing “60 Minutes” and other
programs into crisis. Variety wrote that his rising empire “skews alpha male,”
raising fears that he’d “entwine the studio’s content more closely with MAGA
messaging.” Ellison’s willingness to cater to the president — he threw a party
in Trump’s honor in April — is almost certainly why Trump’s Justice Department
approved Ellison’s bid for Warner Bros., reportedly overruling career officials
who worried it would violate antitrust law.
Should
the merger go forward, many in Hollywood worried the new media behemoth would
greenlight fewer TV shows and films, especially those that displeased Ellison’s
Republican allies. CNN might become an ersatz Fox News. “Any kind of
documentaries that are holding power to account will never make it to the
marketplace,” Ruffalo told me.
No one
was quite sure how the consolidation could be thwarted. In Hollywood, said
Ruffalo, the mood was both fatalist and opportunistic. When Trump stormed back
into office, he seemed, for a moment, like a cultural as well as a political
conqueror, ushering in a much-discussed vibe shift. When his corrupt Justice
Department greenlit the merger, Ellison’s success seemed inevitable. Besides,
many in the industry were deeply wary of Warner Bros.’ other suitor, Netflix,
which they feared would put fewer movies in theaters. With Ellison about to
become one of the most powerful men in movies, many seemed reluctant to cross
him. “Most of Hollywood, I hate to say it, they just laid down,” Ruffalo told
me.
Eisen, a
lawyer who’s emerged as a sort of attorney general for the anti-Trump
resistance, thought there was a path to stopping the merger, and saw an
imperative to try. “Classically, one of the things that you see in a
backsliding democracy is the autocrat’s favored cronies seizing oligarchal
control of the media,” he said. That’s how things had played out in Russia,
Turkey and Hungary, and now it seemed that the same dynamic was coming to
America. What happened next, however, demonstrates the importance of not
surrendering to authoritarianism prematurely.
In a
phone call on the Supreme Court steps, Eisen drafted an open letter denouncing
the merger and celebrating reports that state attorneys general were
scrutinizing it, tacitly encouraging them to take Paramount to court. Some
leading Hollywood figures, including J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof and Ben
Stiller, signed on. A Times guest essay that Ruffalo helped write said,
“Despite appearances, the end of this story hasn’t been written.” He was right:
This month, buoyed by a growing movement, 12 Democratic attorneys general sued
to stop Ellison’s Warner Brothers takeover, arguing that it violated antitrust
law.
“Historically,
it’s unusual for the states to take the lead on antitrust enforcement actions,”
reported Variety. But the case was strong enough that last week, a California
judge issued a temporary restraining order putting the merger on hold. And on
Friday, Paramount, which had hoped to close the deal this month, agreed to
postpone the merger until next June or the end of the trial, whichever comes
first.
“I think
it’s seismic,” the media reporter Oliver Darcy, founder of the influential
newsletter Status, said of the delay. “And it certainly puts into question
whether this deal will cross the finish line.”
Obviously,
Ellison could still prevail. But at the very least, the delay is likely to cost
him a lot of money. When Paramount was competing with Netflix to take over
Warner Bros., it sweetened its offer with a so-called ticking fee, in which
Paramount agreed to pay Warner Bros. shareholders about $7 million a day if the
deal isn’t closed by Sept. 30. Should the deal drag on until next June,
Paramount could be out almost $2 billion.
The
lawsuit could also put pressure on Paramount to settle, perhaps by spinning off
CNN and making guarantees that would protect jobs in Hollywood. In an interview
with Status, Rob Bonta, California’s attorney general, said it wouldn’t be
enough for Ellison to just give up control of CNN, but that such a move would
“definitely have value.”
The mere
possibility that the deal could be defeated, said Ruffalo, has strengthened
resistance in Hollywood. After Paramount announced its pause, SAG-AFTRA, the
union that represents actors, broadcasters and recording artists, finally voted
to oppose the merger. There’s a growing understanding, said Ruffalo, that if
you let yourself be cowed by MAGA, “you’re doomed. If you fight, at least you
have a fighting chance. And they’re losing their grip on power. They’re losing
their grip on their narrative.” As Trump looks ever less indomitable, so does
his dream of remaking American culture in his image.
That’s
the lesson for Eisen, too: that Trump is beatable if you take a page from his
playbook and flood the zone with opposition. In Trump’s second term, Eisen’s
60-person outfit, Democracy Defenders, has been involved in some of the most
consequential legal battles against Trump: protecting birthright citizenship,
ending Trump’s “weaponization” slush fund, blocking the Justice Department’s
attempt to subpoena election officials in Georgia, and stripping Trump’s name
off the Kennedy Center.
“They’re
all about the defense of our democracy,” said Eisen. “And in some ways, the
Paramount/Warner Bros. case is as important as any of them.”
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