‘Trump Hates Them’: Comcast Said To Face Uphill Battle To Win Control of CNN’s Parent Company Despite Large Gift for Ballroom

NBC’s corporate parent, Comcast, is believed to be making “overtures” to the Trump administration to improve relations, but there are indications that even a “nice” donation to the new White House ballroom is not enough to curry favor for what could be a crucial media merger. President Trump’s planned ballroom is expected to cost around $300 million, perhaps much more. Several private major corporations — including tech giants such as Meta, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon — have donated to its construction. The only major old-line media organization to give was Comcast. Critics of these companies contend they are opening up their wallets for such a controversial project near and dear to Mr. Trump in the hope of improving relations with the Trump administration and avoiding the president’s ire.Comcast’s donation comes as it is reportedly eyeing a bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery and its various properties, possibly including CNN. Such a deal would require the federal government’s approval. WBD only recently announced it’s for sale — and the favorite to buy it, the Ellison family’s Paramount Global, has already made three offers that were rejected. Comcast is viewed as a dark horse, but one with very deep pockets. If Comcast doesn’t buy WBD, it could find itself dwarfed by, and unable to compete with, Disney, Netflix, and the newly combined Paramount-WBD.Despite Comcast’s donation, a “senior Trump administration” official told the New York Post, “Who owns Warner Bros. Discovery is very important to the administration.”“The Warner board needs to think very seriously not just on the price competition but which player in the suitor pool has been successful getting a deal done,” the official said. “And that points to the Ellisons.” David Ellison, the son of the world’s second-richest man and a strong Trump supporter, Larry Ellison, is the CEO of Skydance, which acquired CBS News’s corporate parent company, Paramount, this year. David is backed by Larry’s enormous fortune. The official also said the chance that the CEO of Comcast, Brian Roberts, is “going to be able to expand and buy CNN or whatever” is “low.” The official did not rule out the possibility that Mr. Roberts will come up with a “grand detente with the president,” but added, “I don’t think that will happen and that’s the key.”A veteran media reporter, Matthew Belloni, also raised doubts about whether the Trump administration would greenlight a Comcast-WBD merger.Mr. Belloni said on his podcast “The Town” earlier this week that “the problem they have is the Trump stuff. Trump hates them. He blames them for MSNBC, even though that’s being spun off. He’s investigating their DEI policies.”He noted that Comcast “made a very nice donation to the new ballroom at the White House … so maybe that is the overture to try to get on his good side.” The exact amount of the donation to the ballroom has not been publicly disclosed. Still, Mr. Belloni said, “If there was announced a merger of the companies that own CNN and MSNBC, Donald Trump would go nuts.”In recent months, Comcast executives have taken steps that appear to be aimed at placating the Trump administration. In April, Mr. Trump suggested that the decision to spin off MSNBC was an attempt by Comcast to avoid a lawsuit from him. “Comcast, which also has the ailing network known as NBC, is trying to stay away from lawsuits by disassociating NBC from MSNBC, but it won’t work,” the president said on Truth Social. “Comcast, the owner of both, and it’s [sic] Chairman, Brian Roberts, are a disgrace to the integrity of Broadcasting!!!”Earlier this month, NBC News came under fire after it announced it was slashing 150 jobs. A source told the Wrap that the cuts “did not target specific teams and were driven by the network’s budget and the desire to streamline its editorial efforts.” But the cuts did target NBC News’s diversity verticals. These verticals were NBC BLK, focusing on black people, NBC Asian America, NBC Latino, and NBC OUT, focusing on gay, lesbian, transgender, and “queer” issues. Liberal social media users accused the network of being “MAGA state media” and trying to placate the Trump administration.Despite those steps, NBC News has retained several of its most liberal journalists, such as its far-left White House correspondent, Yamiche Alcindor, who frequently challenges Mr. Trump and his press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, with liberal talking points. Also staying with NBC after the divorce are MSNBC’s liberal data maven, Steve Kornacki, the anti-Trump “Meet the Press” host, Kristen Welker, and the weekend “Nightly News” host, Jose Diaz Balart, a fierce critic of Mr. Trump’s immigration policies who also works for Telemundo. NBCNews.com continues to be anti-Trump and anti-Israel in its coverage.While Skydance has reportedly made three offers to buy WBD, which have been rejected, the Ellisons’ connection to Mr. Trump may be the key to determining the outcome of the deal, which will likely need approval from the Federal Communications Commission to go through. Both Paramount and Comcast own broadcast networks (CBS and NBC, respectively) and local television stations. These networks and stations come under the FCC purview. The younger Mr. Ellison has indicated that he wants to purge CBS News of what he feels is a left-wing, anti-Israel bias. While Mr. Ellison’s ownership of the Tiffany Network is still in its infancy, the network’s flagship news program, “60 Minutes,” has continued to broadcast anti-Trump programming, resuming a series of stories it began airing in its previous season about what it considers to be Mr. Trump’s endangering of national security and “the rule of law.”Mr. Trump has expressed support for the Ellisons owning CBS News. Before Skydance’s acquisition of CBS’s corporate parent, Paramount, was approved, the president said he believed Mr. Ellison would do a “great job with it.”While CBS staffers appear to be bucking their new owner’s desire to make the network’s coverage more balanced, there is speculation — as Mr. Belloni noted — that the Trump administration would not be amenable to the idea of CNN being handed over to new owners who have not expressed a desire to clean up mainstream media outlets in the way Mr. Ellison has. Comcast did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment by the time of publication.

‘Trump Hates Them’: Comcast Said To Face Uphill Battle To Win Control of CNN’s Parent Company Despite Large Gift for Ballroom

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