U.S. President Donald Trump speaks before signing executive orders in the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, DC, on Jan. 30, 2026.
Annabelle Gordon | Afp | Getty Images
President Donald Trump said in a new interview on Wednesday that he will not be involved in the fight between Netflix and Paramount Skydance to buy some or all of Warner Bros. Discovery.
“I haven’t been involved,” Trump told “NBC Nightly News.”
“I’ve been called by both sides,” Trump said. “It’s the two sides, but I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved. The Justice Department will handle it.”
Trump’s latest comment is a pivot from what he said in early December after Netflix’s proposed acquisition of WBD was made public.
Trump at that time said the deal “could be a problem” because of the size of the market share Netflix would end up with if the proposed purchase was approved by federal regulators.
The president, at the same time, had said he would be involved in the process of reviewing and potentially approving the deal, which, in addition to U.S. regulatory approval, faces a review by European regulators.
Netflix proposes acquiring WBD in a deal worth $72 billion, which would not include the company’s cable networks, including CNN. WBD’s leadership in December recommended approval of that offer, which would give Netflix WBD’s film studio, in addition to HBO and the streaming service HBO Max.
Paramount, in response, launched a hostile takeover bid for all of WBD, with an enterprise value of more than $108 billion.
“There’s a theory that one of the companies is too big and it shouldn’t be allowed to do it, and the other company is saying something else,” Trump told NBC News on Wednesday.
“They’re beating the hell out of each other — and there’ll be a winner,” the president said.
This is developing news. Check back for updates.