Trump is about to turn CNN into "Fox News 2." Will the network go down swinging? (Miles Taylor, Defiance News) [View all]

https://www.defiance.news/p/trump-is-about-to-turn-cnn-into-fox?

The White House used thuggery to seize another news network that the president doesn't like, yet its on-air talent is largely silent. They shouldn't be. History is tuning in.
Miles Taylor
Feb 27, 2026

After a multi-month campaign of thuggery and intimidation, the White House has managed to use federal power to steer the takeover of CNN into the arms of MAGA-friendly billionaires. Anchors of the storied news network will soon be walked to the gallows for the crime of having reported truthfully about Donald Trump. That’s no longer in doubt. The real question is: will they show the courage to go down swinging?

Since last year, Warner Bros. Discovery (parent company of CNN) has been looking for a buyer. Almost immediately, as I wrote about last fall, senior White House officials signaled that the president cared a great deal about who the buyer would be — and that if it was the wrong buyer, that company would face “stiff hurdles from U.S. regulators.” Trump even mused openly about removing CNN’s leadership if one of his friends won the bidding.

Then, apparently unfazed by the corrupt optics, the White House actually went further and held meetings with the people it decided were best suited to buy CNN and make it more MAGA friendly. The largest shareholder of Paramount, Larry Ellison, reportedly flew to Washington to chat with White House aides about which specific CNN anchors the president would like to have fired — reporters who said what Trump didn’t want them to say. Paramount CEO David Ellison (son of Larry) similarly acknowledged having “great conversations” with Trump that touched on CNN. Behind the scenes, threats were leaked from the White House, Justice Department, and beyond about what regulatory and legal trouble would await Warner Bros. Discovery if it sold itself to the wrong buyer.

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Staffers inside the network are now dreading the coming ideological makeover. They are expecting that Paramount will bring the same wrecking ball to CNN that it brought to CBS News. Indeed, the Ellison family recently tapped conservative writer Bari Weiss to gut the broadcast network and turn it into something the president would like. One CNN producer told The Guardian that a Paramount-WBD merger would be a “disaster,” adding that if CBS News chief Bari Weiss took control, “it will be the end of the global network Ted Turner founded.”

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