Trump is about to turn CNN into "Fox News 2." Will the network go down swinging?

The White House used thuggery to seize another news network that the president doesn't like, yet its on-air talent is largely silent. They shouldn't be. History is tuning in.

After a multi-month campaign of thuggery and intimidation, the White House has managed to use federal power to steer the takeover of CNN into the arms of MAGA-friendly billionaires. Anchors of the storied news network will soon be walked to the gallows for the crime of having reported truthfully about Donald Trump. That’s no longer in doubt. The real question is: will they show the courage to go down swinging?

The dots were visible to anyone willing to connect them.

Since last year, Warner Bros. Discovery (parent company of CNN) has been looking for a buyer. Almost immediately, as I wrote about last fall, senior White House officials signaled that the president cared a great deal about who the buyer would be — and that if it was the wrong buyer, that company would face “stiff hurdles from U.S. regulators.” Trump even mused openly about removing CNN’s leadership if one of his friends won the bidding.

Then, apparently unfazed by the corrupt optics, the White House actually went further and held meetings with the people it decided were best suited to buy CNN and make it more MAGA friendly. The largest shareholder of Paramount, Larry Ellison, reportedly flew to Washington to chat with White House aides about which specific CNN anchors the president would like to have fired — reporters who said what Trump didn’t want them to say. Paramount CEO David Ellison (son of Larry) similarly acknowledged having “great conversations” with Trump that touched on CNN. Behind the scenes, threats were leaked from the White House, Justice Department, and beyond about what regulatory and legal trouble would await Warner Bros. Discovery if it sold itself to the wrong buyer.

And now the deal is basically done. Trump’s buddies get to take over his least favorite news network and turn it into pro-Trump slop, perhaps even into “Fox News 2.”

Staffers inside the network are now dreading the coming ideological makeover. They are expecting that Paramount will bring the same wrecking ball to CNN that it brought to CBS News. Indeed, the Ellison family recently tapped conservative writer Bari Weiss to gut the broadcast network and turn it into something the president would like. One CNN producer told The Guardian that a Paramount-WBD merger would be a “disaster,” adding that if CBS News chief Bari Weiss took control, “it will be the end of the global network Ted Turner founded.”

Before I get to what CNN talent should do about it — with what little influence they have left — I want to note how they missed an opportunity to sound an alarm for free speech. Because all of this was foreseeable and, perhaps, preventable.

The plot took place in plain sight. The president was brazen. Paramount openly embraced a willingness to “catch and kill” news networks on behalf of Trump. Sadly, when they got into the crosshairs, the CNN team looked like passengers unaware that they were in a slow-motion train wreck. Looking out the window. Chatting about the beautiful countryside. They didn’t seem to notice that the iconic, 50-year-old cable news juggernaut was about to hit a brick wall. Or if they did, few were bold enough to storm the conductor’s compartment and pull the brake.

In private, I pressed friends at CNN about this. Everyone seemed to think someone else would stop it from happening. Surely Trump couldn’t have CNN taken over by a handpicked buyer.

So in October — after Trump delivered a speech mocking the press in front of U.S. troops and smirking that journalists were “getting better” but “not there yet” — I wrote a piece warning about what was coming. The president was “less than a year into his effort to use the powers of the presidency to pressure the free press into becoming a ‘pro-Trump’ press,” I said, “whether through threats and lawsuits or corporate mergers.” The CBS takeover was underway, and I could see that Trump would be relentless in his quest to pick off CNN, too.

As I wrote then:

“A senior Trump administration official told the New York Post that the White House favors Paramount Skydance … in its bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, which is home to CNN, HBO, and other networks. Rival bidders, the source bragged, would face ‘stiff hurdles from U.S. regulators.’ In other words, the president of the United States is now using federal power to engineer which of his wealthy allies will own which media outlets.”

“Donald Trump is building the scaffolding of information capture. He doesn’t need to send troops into newsrooms to take control of the airwaves. This is the subtler takeover of institutions that decide what Americans see, hear, and believe.”

It didn’t take a lot of foresight to predict CNN’s fate. Trump had just come off of weeks of suing publications like the Wall Street Journal and clearing out the Pentagon of mainstream media outlets and threatening to pull the broadcast licenses of networks that reported on him unfavorably. The thuggery was on full display. When he turned his attention to CNN, it was only a matter of time.

This was a hostile takeover. Why? Because this deal was done through threats. Pure and simple.

If you’re an American reading this, you should know that your taxpayer dollars were used to intimidate and cajole major media players over the past few months to make sure that CNN ended up in the “right hands,” at least in the eyes of Trump. For another day, we can talk about how this campaign probably violated federal law — and deserves a full investigation when the government is back in the hands of people who care about the rule of law.

For now, the most important topic of conversation is whether CNN talent will do anything. They may have missed the window to stop it. But there’s still a chance to do what they do best: warn the world.

CNN has one of the biggest microphones on the planet. Millions upon millions of viewers tune in every day worldwide. Lawmakers watch, foreign governments tune in for trusted coverage, and business leaders keep it on in their offices. When CNN speaks, it reverberates from airport lounges to boardrooms, including in places where Americans might still be trying their best to ignore the uncomfortable truth that their country is crumbling in the hands of a wannabe dictator. Now, a news network they watch is about to become a symbol of that fascist fall.

What’s there to do about it?

Well, there are moments when professionalism demands restraint. Especially in journalism. But there are also moments when professionalism demands loud moral clarity. This is the latter. The kind of gangsterism that led to the seizure of CNN is far more than a danger to the jobs of CNN reporters who the president doesn’t like. It’s a fat middle finger to the First Amendment rights of all Americans.

If Trump’s thugs can change what we hear by pointing a loaded gun, they’ll try to change what we say by doing the same.

So let me humbly suggest that CNN’s talent not act like sheep being taken to the slaughter… or blissfully ignorant train passengers headed toward a wreck… or prisoners being walked to the gallows. Pick your analogy. However you frame it, they’ll soon be the face of the biggest free-speech threat America has faced in the modern era. CNN’s journalists should tell their audience exactly what has transpired — before they’re a forgotten cautionary tale.

Now is the time for an Edward R. Murrow moment. From anchor desks to reporters in the field, CNN talent should speak for the conscience of a country being muzzled.

Which of them will rise to the task? Jake Tapper? Laura Coates? Abby Phillip? Kaitlan Collins? Anderson Cooper? John Berman? I know and like each of them. I also know each of them has the kind of conviction and courage we’d hope to see in a moment like this. Maybe they couldn’t stop this from happening. But I hope at least some of them will explain why this all matters — not to their careers, but to the public’s right to receive information unfiltered by presidential preference.

This is not a time to tread lightly in anticipation of pleasing new corporate parents. It’s a time to say that when a president uses federal authority to shape who owns the press, the Bill of Rights is in the gravest danger. CNN’s talent now faces a defining choice. They can treat this as background noise and place a loser’s bet on the hope that their incoming masters will be benevolent. Or they can do what put them in the president’s crosshairs in the first place by telling the truth.

The team at CNN has one of the biggest microphones in the world. My request to them — as Trump tries to take the mic — is very simple: “Don’t mute yourself.”

Your friend, in defiance,

Miles Taylor

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