A state attorney general brushed off a "blackmail" attempt by a media executive amid a lawsuit against a Trump-backed merger.
During an interview with former CNN anchor Jim Acosta, California Attorney General Rob Bonta talked about how David Ellison, the head of Paramount Skydance, threatened to pull out of Hollywood if his merger with Warner Bros. Discovery gets blocked. The Trump Department of Justice greenlit the merger earlier this year, paving the way for Paramount to take over the major Hollywood studio.
"That just felt like a desperate last-ditch effort to try to blackmail my office and the other AGs who have a job to do," Bonta said. "A duty to regulate and to blackmail us into allowing an illegal merger to go through, which we can't do, we won't do, we didn't do, we will never do."
Political commentators have already noted how the industry-shaking merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. could crush the California economy if Paramount moves. California is now leading a coalition of 12 attorneys general who filed a lawsuit on Monday to stop the purchase on antitrust grounds. Bonta says that Ellison is now threatening to leave California to stop the lawsuit.
"It didn't work," Bonta said. "That's the kind of conduct you see from monopolists trying to strong-arm their way into existence and trying to get their way."
Bonta stressed that the lawsuit is meant to stop Ellison from forming a media monopoly that can raise prices and "to prevent the harm to everyday people who, while sitting on a couch, just want to get access to basic cable channels like Comedy Central and Nickelodeon," he said.
"Or on a special occasion, want to go to the movies to celebrate an anniversary or go on a date and experience some of the joys of life without it breaking the bank," Bonta said. "That's exactly why we brought our lawsuit to prevent monopolistic behavior."