{"id":330,"date":"2026-06-15T18:39:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:39:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=330"},"modified":"2026-06-15T18:39:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T18:39:17","slug":"state-attorneys-general-can-block-the-paramount-warner-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=330","title":{"rendered":"State Attorneys General Can Block the Paramount-Warner Merger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Every state attorney general in America should sue to block the multibillion-dollar Paramount-Warner deal. And then, they should sue to unwind the prior deal in which Paramount bribed Trump in order to buy Skydance. These are the fruits of Trump\u2019s blatant corruption.<\/p>\n

Read more Trump\u2019s Iran Deal Is a Humiliation for Him\u2014and Good News for the World<\/a><\/p>\n

While Trump\u2019s corruption is widely known, it is rare that state attorneys general have as much power to thwart it. The pending merger threatens the most fundamental freedom we have in this country, a free press. Stopping a corrupt president from gathering power and censoring dissent should be an all-hands-on-deck moment.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s go back to how we got here to better understand why state AGs are potentially so central. In 2024, Donald Trump sued CBS and Paramount, saying that the way 60 Minutes<\/em> edited a Kamala Harris interview caused him \u201cmental anguish\u201d and constituted election interference. It was a ridiculous, patently frivolous suit. No lawyer took it seriously on the merits or as anything but a stunt and a shakedown.<\/p>\n

But in 2025, the CEO of CBS\/Paramount wanted to buy Skydance. He knew Trump wanted two things: cash, and loyalty. He offered both. Paramount offered $16 million in what was called a \u201csettlement.\u201d But it had all the hallmarks of a bribe. The lawsuit wasn\u2019t grounded in a real legal theory, and big media companies know they can\u2019t settle whenever anyone howls over coverage\u2014or they\u2019d go out of business.<\/p>\n

Senators Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden sent a to CBS\/Paramount noting that settling a lawsuit that the company\u2019s own lawyers called \u201ccompletely without merit\u201d in exchange for regulatory approval \u201cmay be engaging in improper conduct\u201d under 18 U.S.C. \u00a7 201 (the federal bribery statute), which bars giving anything of value to a public official to influence an official act. Warren said, \u201cThis looks like bribery in plain sight.\u201d Stephen Colbert called it \u201ca big fat bribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other half of the payment, far more valuable to Trump, was editorial loyalty at CBS. Days after Colbert\u2019s \u201cbribe\u201d comment, CBS canceled The Late Show with Stephen Colbert<\/em>, its top-rated late-night program, starring one of Trump\u2019s most persistent critics. Simultaneously, the destruction of 60 Minutes<\/em> began. Its longtime executive producer left over inappropriate pressure over coverage decisions, and the program\u2019s leadership signaled that it would avoid controversy around stories involving the administration.<\/p>\n

And now Paramount, hungry for more power, is on the verge of closing a merger with Warner Bros. On Friday, the Trump administration\u2019s Justice Department announced that it saw no antitrust problems with the merger.<\/p>\n

The merger would be disastrous for American cultural life, and a free press. The combined company would mean a unified editorial voice at CBS, Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon, MTV, Comedy Central, CBS News, Warner Bros., HBO, CNN, TNT, TBS, and the DC film\/TV library. It would merge two of the last major independent news operations (CBS News and CNN) under one owner with clear loyalty to a White House that has already extracted editorial concessions, with a pattern of corrupt dealmaking. It would give a president editorial influence over a huge fraction of American film, television, and news production.<\/p>\n

The scope of the potential carnage is almost unthinkable. As Matt Stoller, a journalist and monopoly critic who has been organizing against this merger, says, \u201cConsolidation in Hollywood has been a disaster, and has led to the weak state of the industry. If we want to continue to even have a TV or film industry, this merger needs to be blocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same can be said for free speech. The existing media environment is already calamitous for expression. The critically acclaimed documentary No Other Land<\/em>, an Oscar-winning film about Palestine, couldn\u2019t find a major distributor; the big guys don\u2019t want to annoy the chief. A post-merger documentary distribution system would have one corporate owner controlling CBS, Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros., HBO\/Max, and CNN, and the DC library\u2014all key documentary channels that acquire, fund, or distribute documentaries\u2014answering to a single company with demonstrated willingness to avoid content that angers the administration.<\/p>\n

Read more Separation of Church and State: America\u2019s Best Idea<\/a><\/p>\n

Attorneys general can stop the merger. They can sue to block the merger under the federal Clayton Act, which prohibits mergers where the effect \u201cmay be substantially to lessen competition,\u201d and their own state antitrust statutes (e.g., New York\u2019s Donnelly Act, California\u2019s Cartwright Act) regardless of what the federal DOJ does. Multiple states are reportedly preparing such a challenge. California AG Rob Bonta has been the most publicly vocal critic and is running an active investigation. The entertainment industry is headquartered in California; most creative workers affected live there. But Paramount, CBS, and WBD all have major New York operations, and New York Attorney General Letitia James has strong subpoena power and a history of aggressive media investigations. Texas, Illinois, Florida, and others also have strong jurisdictional hooks.<\/p>\n

State AGs were long second fiddle in antitrust, although they occasionally challenged federal approval. When the DOJ made a decision, that basically was the decision. But in 2026 there has been a sea change in antitrust law.<\/p>\n

After Trump\u2019s DOJ dropped its major antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster, New York, Tennessee, and other states refused to pretend Ticketmaster wasn\u2019t breaking the law, and won a major jury verdict.<\/p>\n

More to the point, the Trump agencies blessed Nexstar\u2019s merging with Tegna, a deal that created the largest local TV station owner in the country, including 256 stations reaching nearly 80 percent of US households. But California\u2019s Rob Bonta, using outside counsel, sued to block the deal, and a federal judge granted Bonta an injunction. The deal is on hold. If California can block Nexstar, Illinois can block Paramount. As of 2026, no one should treat a federal decision on antitrust as the end of the story.<\/p>\n

To take on a challenge so large, the states may need to use outside counsel, as they did in Ticketmaster and Nexstar. We should cheer this on\u2014the resources they have in house are not sufficient to take on the full burden of enforcing federal antitrust law in the face of corrupted federal agencies.<\/p>\n

Along with using antitrust law, states and district attorneys should also look at criminal law. Local DAs with jurisdiction could investigate criminal activity in the settlement. CBS Broadcasting and Paramount Global are incorporated and headquartered in New York County. The executives who authorized the settlement were in Manhattan. The Manhattan DA can investigate under New York bribery law, which forbids \u201cconferring a benefit upon an employee or agent of another person with intent to influence conduct.\u201d<\/p>\n

NY AG James can also investigate and prosecute persistent fraud or illegality by any business operating in New York, and if there\u2019s a pattern including the settlement plus any editorial interference at CBS, could use New York\u2019s \u201cEnterprise Corruption\u201d law, a statute that targets a pattern of criminal acts conducted through a legitimate business. While Trump enjoys substantial immunity after Trump v. United States<\/em> (2024) for official acts, the AG and DAs could focus on the corporate side.<\/p>\n

The Paramount-Warner deal is planned just at the moment of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence from monopoly-rotted England. State AGs owe it to the past and future of democracy to block this corrupt deal from being consummated.<\/p>\n

Read more This Week in \u2018Nation\u2019 History: The Life and Times of Eric Hobsbawm<\/a><\/p>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Nation Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":329,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-anti-monopolist"],"yoast_head":"\nState Attorneys General Can Block the Paramount-Warner Merger - Atlas Living Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=330\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"State Attorneys General Can Block the Paramount-Warner Merger - Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Nation Magazine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/atlaslivingmedia.com\/?p=330\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Atlas Living Media\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-06-15T18:39:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/f6233854b1f92a6d21147fe5d5e58abc\"},\"headline\":\"State Attorneys General Can Block the Paramount-Warner Merger\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-06-15T18:39:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330\"},\"wordCount\":1263,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/06\\\/a32197d7749d1838f9725e84259965e1.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Anti-Monopolist\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/atlaslivingmedia.com\\\/?p=330\",\"name\":\"State Attorneys General Can Block the Paramount-Warner Merger - 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