Hollywood's latest power player just gave the Senate the cold shoulder. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has announced he'll skip a crucial Senate hearing on his company's blockbuster merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, claiming he needs to attend a family funeral instead.
The Wednesday afternoon hearing, called by Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), ranking member of the Senate Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy, and Consumer Rights, was supposed to examine the massive media consolidation deal that could reshape America's entertainment landscape. Instead, Ellison is pulling a no-show.
But here's what really matters, folks: while Hollywood executives play musical chairs with billion-dollar deals, everyday Americans are getting squeezed by higher streaming prices and fewer choices. These media megamergers always promise "efficiencies" and "synergies," but what families actually get is more expensive content and the same woke propaganda packaged under different corporate logos.
Deep State Democrats Push Corporate Cronyism
The timing is particularly rich. Under the previous Biden regime, antitrust enforcement was supposedly a priority – except when it came to their buddies in Big Tech and Hollywood. Now that President Trump is back in office, suddenly Democrats like Booker want to hold hearings about corporate concentration?
The Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger represents exactly the kind of establishment media consolidation that has given us years of anti-American, anti-family programming. These are the same companies that spent the Trump administration pushing Russian collusion hoaxes and COVID lockdown hysteria.
"While Mr. Ellison tends to family matters, American families are left wondering how this mega-merger will impact their wallets and their values," one Senate aide told reporters.
The Trump administration's approach to antitrust should focus on breaking up the real monopolies – Big Tech censorship cartels and the administrative state – not enabling more Hollywood consolidation that concentrates power among the same coastal elites who despise Middle America.
Will Ellison eventually face tough questions about this deal, or will he get the same kid-glove treatment that Silicon Valley executives received under Biden? Patriots deserve transparency, not executive privilege disguised as personal tragedy.