Andrew Ross Sorkin

Therefore, whatever ruling we get for the Supreme Court, I don't think, at least in the immediate term, actually changes the dynamic that much.

I think this is an important deal because it speaks to so many parts of our nation and our culture.

It touches us in the context of the movies we go see at movie theaters and, frankly, whether we will continue to see movies at movie theaters.

It goes to control over news in the context that the Ellison family would ultimately own CNN if this transaction were to move ahead.

It goes to the idea of creators and the creator economy and film producers and TV producers and actors and what kinds of shows will get made in the future and frankly, how many productions and programs and films will be produced in any given year, given some of the savings that both companies arguably will hope to be able to wring out of a deal of this sort.

In the context of the Paramount transaction, it involves, as you mentioned, Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the president, being one of the investors that's backing that deal.

And also these Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds, which they say will be, quote, passive investors, but invariably will raise questions about what kind of influence of foreign ownership could ultimately have.

So there's so many different component parts to this.

And then, of course, what it does to consumer costs, how much you're going to spend on your Netflix or Paramount subscriptions in the future, how much advertisers are going to pay to reach folks, how much these companies are going to have to buy rights for sports and other kinds of programming.

So

It really does touch so much of life.

And then, by the way, you throw in the fact that the Ellison family in particular, Larry Ellison owns Oracle, which is a big database company.

They're very involved with AI.

They're also going to be part owners in TikTok.

And so you start to think about just all of the different tentacles of these various businesses as well.

Exactly.

In terms of how this plays out from a regulatory perspective, we would see the Justice Department likely sue if, in fact, they wanted to block such a deal.

I think what's particularly unique about this deal is that the president said,

maybe the quiet part out loud the other day, where he said that he plans to be involved in the decision-making.

Historically, we have never heard presidents, including President Trump, even in his first term when AT&T was trying to buy Time Warner, interestingly, would never say, at least publicly, that they were actively going to be part of that decision.