Paramount Skydance's greenlight to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery will lead to a major shakeup at CNN, warned a political strategist.
The upheaval coming for CNN will make recent events at CBS look like peanuts, political strategist Chai Komanduri said on MS NOW. While Paramount awaited approval from the Trump administration for the Warner Bros. deal, CBS ended "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" and ousted a slew of "60 Minutes" anchors and producers.
"Now, if you can replicate that on CNN, and you can diminish and downsize the voices in opposition to Trump or the criticism of moves of the administration, that gives Trump a lot more power," Komanduri said. "The stories that we have heard out of CBS News will be peanuts compared to the stories that will probably come out from CNN."
He warned Kaitlan Collins, the CNN correspondent who has been the target of Trump attacks, and said the Trump administration is "very much interested in who gets to be the CNN White House correspondent."
The Trump Department of Justice gave Paramount CEO and MAGA ally David Ellison the thumbs-up to acquire Warner Bros. for $110 billion. One of the most notable Warner Bros. properties is CNN, along with streaming services like HBO Max and Paramount+, and the Warner Bros. movie studio, MS NOW anchor Ari Melber noted.
Komanduri added, "One thing Trump wanted was control of CNN," and "that was his entire interest in the deal. Donald Trump and the DOJ weren't interested in who was going to be the next Batman."