Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Trump wading into Netflix and Paramount's battle over Warner Bros. Discovery

Donald Trump has waded into the battle to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.  

Paramount Skydance has launched a hostile bid for company in a last ditch effort to outbid Netflix. 

The offer would be worth about NZ$188 billion compared to the $125 billion Netflix has been offering. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Heather du Plessis-Allan that this level of presidential involvement is new, with Trump saying he’ll look at both proposals. 

He says Trump has said that neither company are particularly great friends of his, so it’s unknown as to what his approval will hinge on. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Richard Arnold US correspondents with US Morning.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Richard, Good morning Heather.

Speaker 3 (00:03):
So Trump's got involved in this Netflix deal.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Yeah, He's inserted himself into the TV and movie wars,
saying he will be engaged in who gets to buy
Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns lots of media operations. Their
holdings include HBO and on the news front, CNN. This
presidential involvement, well, it's all new. We haven't seen this
kind of thing before. Will the Trump administration approval then
hinge on who the president favors, how the president can

(00:29):
impact programming. We have now this one hundred and eight
billion US dollar hostile bid for Warners by Paramount, which
draws from wealth funds in Saudi Arabia, Kata and Abu Dhabi.
This is led by David Ellison, whose mega billionaire father
Larry Worth two hundred and seventy seven billion US is
a big support of Donald Trump. They're challenging Netflix, which

(00:50):
is offering eighty two billion for warners. Trump says he
will look at both proposals from the two bidders.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
None of them are particularly great friends of mine.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
Well, it's reported now in the Wall Street Journals that
David Ellison made a pledge to Trump the other day
that if Paramount wins, he would make sweeping changes to CNN,
which is often, of course, a target for Trump's fury.
The Ellison Group also is joined with a private equity
firm led by Da DA Trump's son in lawd Jared Kushner,
So that's another Kushna enterprise. When he's not off in

(01:21):
Moscow talking with Putin. However, Trump has been putting out
scathing social media posts, now lashing Paramount, which recently took
over CBS, because he is furious about former Mega supporter
Marjorie Taylor Green lashing out Atresident Trump on Sixty Minutes.
This week, Marjorie Taylor Green slam Trump in her Sixty
Minutes interview with Leslie Stall, revealing what Trump said to

(01:43):
her privately about her support for the female victims of
pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and her backing for the release of
the Epstein files.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
We did talk about the APSN files, and he was
extremely angry at me that I had signed the discharged
petition to release files. I fully believe that those women
deserve everything they're asking. They're asking for all of it
to come out. They deserve it, and he was furious
with me. What did he say? He said that it

(02:13):
was going to hurt people.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
So Trump is posting repeatedly about disclaiming that sixty minutes
has become worse in his mind and calling Green a
quote low IQ traitor. Green, who voted with Trump ninety
eight percent of the time before they fill out over
the pedophilia scandal, now says she's received bomb threats to
her home and death threats to her son because of
Trump's verbal attacks. She says she complained to the White

(02:36):
House and says Trump replied, but she says she will
keep his response private because she says it wasn't nice.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Now I see this political interview, a Politico interview that
he's given as getting quite a few headlines, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Why not? Yeah, he was fired up on many issues.
In this interview, He's hinted that he might walk away
from Ukraine and slamming Europe as week and calling some
unnamed European leader stupid. Trump is calling on Ukraine's President
Zelensky to seede territory to Russia. He says Zelenski must
quote play ball and says Russia retains the upper hand.
Zelensky has said Ukraine is not open to surrendering in

(03:12):
this way. An American walkout on Ukraine, of course, would
be a pivotal move by the United States. In his
Politico interview, Trump repeatedly described what he said were Europe's
problems in racial terms. Mostly, he said, quote the immigration
policy is a disaster, adding that soon quote many of
these countries will not be viable countries anymore. Meantime, Trump's
self described Secretary of War Pete Hegsas is briefing lawmakers

(03:35):
again today on the boat strike scandal. Trump reversed himself
on releasing the video of the second boat stripe, which
course killed two survivors of the Venezuelan drug boat some
forty minutes after the initial American attack.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
Trump was asked, mister President, you said you would have
no problem with releasing the full video of that shrike
on September second off the closet of Venezuela Secretary Haigs
j is ABC fankness.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
You said that you would have.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
No problem releasing the full bit. Okay, Well, Secretary Hagsav
whatever he sayth wants to do is okay with you.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Well.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
Trump's denial is a lie. Last week, Trump said this
about the issue. I don't know what they have, but
whatever they have would certainly release no problem. They'd release
it no problem. Now, Trump insists he never said, but
we all just heard him say. Trump then slammed the
ABC that we reporter Rachel Scott, who kept at him
about all of this. So Trump responded, are.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
You committing to releasing the full video? Didn't I just
tell you that you said that it was a nonoxious reporter.

Speaker 4 (04:36):
Of the whole place.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Let me just tell you you are an obnoxious, a
terrible actually a terrible reporter.

Speaker 4 (04:42):
And it's always the same thing with you.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
I told you, whatever Pete Haggsath wants to do is
okay with him. This is just the latest Trump attack
on women journalists. Another he called ugly inside and out,
and to yet another he silenced her by saying, quiet
Piggy's fun times.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
Richard, thank you very much, appreciate it. Richard Arnold, US
correspondent on the subject of Trump. It appears Trump is
the reason that the government's bill to try and save
the media or try to assist the media, was shelved.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Do you remember this? This was the fair digital media
bargaining bill that a lot of the media were really hoping,
this is here in New Zealand, we're really hoping would
be some like go some way to assisting them in
terms of being able to get the big tech guys
to pay for using the news and stuff like that. Anyway,
it was with Goldie was doing it, Paul Goldsmith, and
then it was withdrawn in May, and he's now admitted

(05:29):
he withdrew it or had it withdrawn because of concerns
over how Donald Trump might respond, because Trump had been
threatening other countries who were considering enacting or progressing similar legislation.
So we just looked at it and went man not
worth the trouble.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
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