President Donald Trump on Saturday asked Netflix to fire board member Susan Rice or “pay the consequences” after she said Democrats would push for corporate accountability if they regain power in the November midterm elections. Trump, in a Truth Social post, described Rice as “purely a political hack” with “no talent or skills.”
“HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK,” Trump wrote.
Rice, who served as domestic policy chief in former President Joe Biden’s administration and held top foreign policy posts under Barack Obama, argued in a podcast last week that “it is not going to end well” for corporations, news organizations, and law firms that “bent the knee” to Trump, and that their deference is unpopular.
“If these corporations think that Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to play by the old rules, and say, ‘Never mind, we will forgive you for all the people you fired and all the policies and principles you violated, all the laws you skirted,’ I think they got another thing coming,” Rice said.
READ: Netflix aims for $1 trillion valuation by 2030 (A
Trump included a screenshot of an earlier post by Laura Loomer, a far-right activist and Trump ally. Loomer had said Rice’s remarks were “anti-American” and urged the president to “kill the Netflix-Warner Bros. merger now.” Loomer also tagged Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr in her post.
Earlier this month, Trump had told NBC News that the Department of Justice will “handle” the deal and that he’ll stay out of their review, after previously saying he’d be involved in the process.
Netflix has proposed a bid of $72 billion for Warner Bros. Discovery, following which Paramount Skydance launched a hostile takeover bid, offering $30 per share in an all-cash deal. WBD would be voting on whether to go ahead with the Netflix deal — which does not include the company’s cable networks, including CNN — on March 20. Paramount has raised its bid to a price of $31 per share, and offered to cover the breakup fee the HBO owner would owe Netflix if it walked away.
READ: Netflix strikes deal to buy Warner Bros Discovery for $27.75 per share (
The DOJ is investigating whether Netflix’s proposed deal could hurt competition, according to the Wall Street Journal. It has also asked how the company’s previous acquisitions have affected competition for creative talent.
The agency is also examining whether the streaming giant uses anticompetitive tactics in negotiations with independent content creators for acquiring programming, according to a report by Bloomberg. However, Steve Sunshine, Netflix’s outside counsel and the head of the global antitrust group at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, told CNBC in a statement that the law firm hasn’t been given any notice that the DOJ is conducting a monopolization investigation.
In January, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that he’s confident the company will be able to secure regulatory approval “because this deal is pro-consumer … pro-innovation, pro-worker.”