Jon Stewart Marvels at ‘Breathtaking’ Trump ‘Corruption’ and Makes Stunning Prediction About CNN Takeover
Jon Stewart predicted President Donald Trump could end up wrestling away “media properties” for his family from Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison after a sale of Warner Bros. Discovery is approved.
On Wednesday’s edition of The Weekly Show, Stewart called Ellison, a supporter of Trump’s, potential purchase of Warner Bros. “breathtaking” corruption. Stewart currently hosts The Daily Show, which airs on Comedy Central, which is owned by Paramount Skydance.
Stewart argued Ellison is a “loyalist” and he never saw any real chance in Netflix’s offer to purchase Warner Discovery, especially since CNN falls under their corporate umbrella.
“CNN is too big a prize for them to risk handing it over to news people or people who are going to let it just operate. So I never thought Netflix [had a chance]. I always thought they were going to use the lever of FCC approval,” Stewart said.
He predicted major changes to CNN once the $110 billion offer to buy Warner gets FCC approval.
“I’d be astonished if they don’t walk in there and go like, ‘Hey, nice show you got here, it’d be a shame if something happened to it.’ I think the kinds of changes that you’re seeing at CBS are in the offing,” Stewart said, though he argued the changes could be more drastic as the president has more of a “personal grudge” against CNN.
Don’t be surprised, Stewart joked, if you start seeing more “gold cherubs” on CNN’s sets.
CBS is owned by Paramount Skydance and changes since that merger announcement include the cancellation of Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show and Bari Weiss taking over as editor-in-chief of CBS News.
Stewart took his prediction a step further and said he wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump’s family, like Donald Trump Jr., end up taking over “media properties” from Ellison.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if one of these media properties gets handed over to Trump Inc. that Donald Jr. had his hands in. Look, those guys run a drone company and as far as I know they’re not either one of them real aeronautics guys,” he said.
Trump, he added, is going to asking why his family isn’t getting a “taste” of the “empire” eventually.
“Look at the financing. There’s a lot of money from, I think, the Middle East that’s going through there. It’s so explicitly corrupt that it’s almost breathtaking,” he said, adding, “This is like real f*cking monarch sh*t.”
Ellison insisted in a CNBC interview this week that “editorial independence” will be maintained at CNN in response to fears that the network will be “more beholden” to the Trump administration after the sale goes through.
Watch above via The Weekly Show.
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