{"id":5630,"date":"2026-03-05T17:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/05\/democratic-lawmakers-want-to-know-what-trump-officials-said-to-netflix-chief-about-wbd-deal\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T17:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T17:26:08","slug":"democratic-lawmakers-want-to-know-what-trump-officials-said-to-netflix-chief-about-wbd-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/05\/democratic-lawmakers-want-to-know-what-trump-officials-said-to-netflix-chief-about-wbd-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Democratic lawmakers want to know what Trump officials said to Netflix chief about WBD deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and two other Democratic lawmakers demanded more information Monday about what Trump administration officials discussed with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos hours before the streaming giant pulled out of the bidding war<\/a> for Warner Bros. Discovery.<\/p>\n

In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, Warren and her co-signers expressed concern that Trump administration officials \u201cused the closed-door meetings\u201d with Sarandos last week to \u201cdiscourage Netflix\u2019s bid so that Paramount Skydance \u2026 could take over Warner Bros. instead.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

The letter was co-signed by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Rep. Sam Liccardo, D-Calif. <\/p>\n

Paramount Skydance signed a merger agreement<\/a> with Warner Bros. Discovery on Friday, a day after Netflix announced it would not increase its offer for WBD\u2019s studio and streaming assets. Paramount Skydance is led by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Oracle mogul Larry Ellison, a close ally of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour conversations with Mr. Sarandos taint the Warner Bros. bidding process by raising suspicions that the Trump administration\u2019s DOJ is making merger review decisions based on politicized favoritism rather than the law or the facts,\u201d the lawmakers wrote in the letter, which was shared with NBC News.<\/p>\n

Sarandos\u2019 meetings with the Justice Department on Thursday were set up more than two weeks earlier, according to a source familiar with the matter. The executive had a scheduled meeting with White House staff members that afternoon, but it was canceled because they were pulled into a timely matter, the source said.<\/p>\n

Netflix did not respond to a request for comment on the lawmakers\u2019 letter. The Justice Department confirmed it received the letter and declined to comment. <\/p>\n

In an email, a White House official said Trump has \u201cgreat relationships with both Netflix and Paramount. The White House and Trump administration remained totally neutral through the bidding process that was determined solely by the economics of both offers, as confirmed by Netflix\u2019s CEO himself.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a statement after Netflix quit the bidding war Thursday, Sarandos and co-CEO Greg Peters said they believed the price required to match Paramount Skydance\u2019s offer was not \u201cfinancially attractive,\u201d adding that \u201cthis transaction was always a \u2018nice to have\u2019 at the right price, not a \u2018must have\u2019 at any price.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with Bloomberg<\/a> published Sunday, Sarandos was asked what the Justice Department and Trump said to him about Netflix\u2019s quest to acquire WBD. In response, Sarandos said: \u201cI don\u2019t know that there was growing political resistance.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a growing narrative of political resistance. But we were on a normal regulatory path. I was in D.C. on Thursday for a scheduled meeting with DOJ from a couple weeks ago to go through some questions about the deal. It was a very productive meeting, nothing out of the ordinary,\u201d Sarandos said. \u201cNothing had shifted or changed dramatically that hauled me to D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren, Blumenthal and Liccardo are nonetheless pressing for more clarity about what Sarandos discussed with representatives from the Trump administration on Thursday. (The Democratic lawmaker does not have subpoena power because her party does not have a majority in the U.S. Senate.)<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American people deserve to know what Mr. Sarandos was seeking in your meetings, what you said to him, and how your discussions may have contributed to Netflix backing out of the bidding war while the Antitrust Division\u2019s investigation was still pending,\u201d the lawmakers wrote in the five-page letter.<\/p>\n

NBC News previously reported that Sarandos met with White House staff, but not with Trump. The New York Post reported<\/a> that Sarandos met with Bondi, Wiles and Justice Department antitrust officials to \u201ctry to convince the administration not to oppose the deal on antitrust grounds.\u201d NBC News has not verified that report.<\/p>\n

Trump recently told NBC News\u2019 Tom Llamas<\/a> that he would stay out of the antitrust process around the WBD purchase, but he previously indicated multiple times that he would be personally involved. The president has also praised the Ellison family.<\/p>\n

\u201cLarry Ellison is great and his son David is great,\u201d Trump told reporters in October. \u201cThey\u2019re friends of mine. They\u2019re big supporters of mine, and they\u2019ll do the right thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Ellison, speaking on an investors call Monday morning, said Paramount Skydance believes there are \u201cno statutory impediments\u201d to close the WBD merger in the U.S. \u201cWe have already made significant progress in securing regulatory clearances globally prior to the signing of our merger agreement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ellison\u2019s Skydance Media acquired Paramount Global last year in a transaction valued at $8 billion<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Sarandos and Ellison both visited Washington as their respective companies pursued WBD. Sarandos testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee\u2019s antitrust panel in February, while Ellison attended last week\u2019s State of the Union address as a guest of Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., according to a photo on X.<\/p>\n

Netflix\u2019s bid for WBD did not include the company\u2019s cable assets, such as CNN, whereas Paramount Skydance is set to acquire the entire company.<\/p>\n

If approved, the Paramount-WBD merger would unite two storied Hollywood film studios and encompass a sprawling library of intellectual property that ranges from \u201cThe Godfather\u201d and SpongeBob SquarePants (Paramount) to \u201cCasablanca\u201d and Batman (WBD).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and two other Democratic lawmakers demanded more information Monday about what Trump administration officials discussed with Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos hours before the streaming giant pulled out of the bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery. In a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5630","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marketsfortress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}