President Donald Trump is not the sort of old-fashioned Republican who believes businesses should operate unfettered from government interference. Instead, he is now telling Netflix to fire a prominent board member who once worked for the Obama administration.
The streaming giant will “pay the consequences” if it does not fire Susan Rice from its board “immediately,” Trump said on Sunday. But Democrats will not “forgive and forget” companies that bend to Trump, said Rice, the former ambassador to the U.N. under former President Barack Obama, in a recent podcast. This earned Trump’s ire. Rice has “no talent or skills — purely a political hack!” he said on Truth Social.
The controversy comes as Netflix is trying to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) in an $83 billion deal while fending off a rival bid from Trump-friendly Paramount Skydance. Trump does not have “direct authority to kill media deals,” said Axios, but his comments “could still have an impact on investors and regulators” who must approve the Netflix deal.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Netflix leaders are shrugging off Trump’s demands, said Politico. The bid for WBD “is a business deal. It’s not a political deal,” said CEO Ted Sarandos. That is not entirely true. The Justice Department is already “probing Netflix’s proposed takeover” for antitrust concerns, said Politico.
What did the commentators say?
Trumpism “closely resembles state-run capitalism,” said Steve Benen at MS Now. The president wants a say in “what private companies charge, their profit margins, the salaries of their executives” and even personnel matters. Trump in August called on Intel to fire its CEO, then followed up in September by urging Microsoft to fire an executive who worked in the Biden administration. His new threat against Netflix is not “posturing or hollow rhetoric.” If Trump wants to derail the company’s bid for WBD, he is “in a position to do so.”
The president is demanding Rice be fired “because she exercised her First Amendment right to criticize him,” Marc Elias said at Democracy Docket. Netflix “now has a choice” to make. The company can “stand behind a distinguished board member,” or it can “fire her at the despotic demand of the president.” Netflix should stand with Rice because firing her “would represent a form of institutional surrender with no bottom and no end.” The question now is whether “Netflix has the courage” to make the right choice and demonstrate that “not every pillar of civil society is too weak and too lacking in self-respect to face Trump’s threats with resolve.”
What next?
Warner Bros. Discovery has deemed a sweetened bid from Paramount Skydance to be superior to Netflix's offer, said The Associated Press. Netflix has four business days to counter, and regulators could still step in. Sarandos is working to prevent that. He will attend meetings at the White House next Thursday to discuss the WBD bid.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Joel Mathis is a writer with 30 years of newspaper and online journalism experience. His work also regularly appears in National Geographic and The Kansas City Star. His awards include best online commentary at the Online News Association and (twice) at the City and Regional Magazine Association.
