On Wednesday, Donald Trump told reporters he thinks it’s “imperative” that CNN be sold off as part of any possible merger involving its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.
Netflix announced it had reached a $72 billion deal to acquire the media and entertainment giant last week. In response, Paramount launched a hostile bid worth $108 billion. Notably, Netflix’s offer does not include ownership of CNN, while the Paramount bid does.
Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported that David Ellison, Paramount CEO and son of Trump ally Larry Ellison, assured the president that he would make sweeping changes to the news network should he acquire its parent company.
The president’s public meddling drew criticism from MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough. On Thursday’s “Morning Joe,” Scarborough said Trump’s comments were unprecedented, telling viewers this was a moment for “everybody to stop and draw a breath” and “play the game that we love to play, which is, what if any other president that preceded Donald Trump had ever said [that]?’
“What if JFK had said The New York Times needs to go away? Time [Magazine] needs to go away?” he continued. “What if, you know, George W. Bush said Newsweek needs to go away?”
According to Scarborough, if any of Trump’s predecessors had said something remotely similar, “the shock coming from all quarters would be overwhelming.”
The “Morning Joe” co-host argued that by making those comments, Trump was showing his hand, “telling his regulators what deals to agree on and what deals not to agree on.”
Scarborough said this move was part of Trump’s hostile attitude toward the media, pointing to several occasions in recent weeks where the president has lashed out at journalists, most often female journalists.
“It’s so outrageous,” he said, after playing a clip of Trump verbally attacking a CNN reporter earlier this week, adding the president had put “a bubble” around himself, “where a basic question that every reporter is asking suddenly is an excuse for him to strike out at a young reporter.”
As Trump doubles down on his attacks on the media and pushes to overhaul a news network over its critical coverage, the former Republican congressman said it’s up to other individuals in government to serve as backstops to his overreach.
Scarborough asked: “The question is not what the president is going to say and do. The question is, what are the regulators going to do? What are Republicans in Congress going to do? What are the courts going to do?”
“Are they going to allow a president to destroy a news organization simply because he doesn’t like what they say about him? Because that’s the direction he’s headed.”
You can watch Scarborough’s full commentary in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.