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Lawmakers on both sides of the Capitol are preparing for possible hearings on Netflix and Paramount’s battle for Warner Bros. Discovery — but the type of legislation that could stop or alter any deal is very likely out of reach.
As the WBD fight gets nastier, Congress is already weighing oversight of a merger that will take at least a year to close, transforming the US entertainment industry in the process. Atop the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel, Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said his aides and those to Chair Mike Lee, R-Utah, are “working on” a possible hearing plan.
Their House counterpart on antitrust, Rep. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Wis., told Semafor that similar conversations are happening in the House with Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, including discussions about who might make “good witnesses, and we’ll make a decision on it soon.”
Those hearings, if they happen, would become high-profile vehicles for the type of political static that often bogs down major deals. To have any binding impact on the WBD fight, however, requires legislation — either specifically targeting the sale or generally modernizing how the government handles certain mergers — and 10 lawmakers in both parties affirmed to Semafor that’s a long shot before 2027.
“We need it; we need it badly,” Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said of new antitrust legislation, though he said he’s unsure it can pass this Congress.
“It’s the biggest players, the biggest incumbent players across industry, but particularly the tech industry, [that] are extremely hostile to any update to our anti-choice laws because they’re a bunch of monopolists.”
In one sign of the low interest in a bipartisan effort next year, some progressives are contending that new legislation is unnecessary because both Netflix and Paramount’s offers already violate existing antitrust law. They’ve focused on other oversight paths, like pushing Attorney General Pam Bondi to recuse herself due to conflicts of interest and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent for a possible review of foreign investors’ role in the WBD fight.
“We just need an independent investigation and a decision based on the law, and not on who offered Donald Trump the biggest contribution to his gold-plated ballroom,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who led both requests, told Semafor.
“I’d be glad to update our competition policies,” Warren added. “But we don’t need one for this merger.”
Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., floated a shadow hearing where Democrats could invite former Federal Trade Commission officials to testify. She agreed that “it is an enforcement issue. We have laws — they’re just not being enforced.”
The president, who’s said he will be personally involved in reviewing the merger, has longstanding ties to the Ellison family whose wealth is backstopping much of Paramount’s offer. But it’s far from guaranteed that Trump would personally intervene against Netflix, whose CEO has stayed close to him as it prepped its own $83 billion bid.
Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was part of the financing behind Paramount’s $108 billion hostile bid for WBD before pulling out last week amid scrutiny over his involvement.
Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said he has “a lot of questions” about the WBD deal, including “any effort by the president to leverage these merger proposals to change the content of a news organization” (a reference to Trump’s stated hope that CNN be sold as part of any takeover) and “the impact on prices for consumers.”
A White House official told Semafor that Trump “maintains good relationships with both bidders for Warner Brothers, and is neutral in this bidding war.”
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Several lawmakers who are discussing hearings said legislation could ultimately result. That would be a huge task during a midterm election year; Congress last tried and failed to update antitrust laws before the 2022 midterms, a push that homed in on Big Tech.
Fitzgerald told Semafor that “we’re moving in that direction.” Booker said he and Lee agree “that we have gotten to a point of corporate concentration in our country like never seen before, and something needs to be done.”
But no Democrat was optimistic that anything could pass soon in the GOP-controlled capital.
“Antitrust legislation is extraordinarily complex and biblical,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a senior Judiciary member. “And we are in an era where there is a lot of bipartisan cooperation on antitrust issues, but still difficulty in achieving anything specific in the immediate future.”
Polls have consistently found that most voters in both parties want the government to push back more on corporate power. Yet Jayapal observed that “a lot of the antitrust” champions in the GOP are “no longer here … which is too bad.”
She pointed specifically to former Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., who worked closely with Democrats on the issue and wrote a book on Big Tech before resigning last year.
Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., told Semafor she’s in active discussions with Republicans on a proposed tax credit for entertainment companies that could serve as a “counterweight” to consolidation.
“It’s hard to imagine, in this kind of bipartisan environment, that we’re going to do things like work on antitrust legislation,” said Friedman, a former film producer. “I do think that we can make progress on the film tax credit.”
Room for Disagreement
Another factor impeding potential legislation is the clear split among Republicans over whether Congress should try to affect the WBD sale at all.
“I let the antitrust people sort out any concerns and I let the free market do what the free market does best,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said.
Eleanor’s view
In this hyper-partisan Congress, it’s unusual to see members of both parties reckoning in similar ways, and largely collegially, with the rise of streaming.
Fitzgerald likened lawmakers’ concerns about the merger to questions that are often raised about the decades-old law governing professional sports leagues’ broadcasting rights.
“I don’t think anyone imagined where streaming would go,” Fitzgerald said. “The Sports Broadcast Act … was written in ’61, so it’s completely antiquated.”
“Same thing,” he added. “I mean, people are just out of their minds trying to find their hometown football team.”
Still, we’re a long way from bipartisan agreement on antitrust legislation that would inevitably become a lobbying bonanza and political sideshow.
So Washington may settle for hearings — and even those might not happen if Netflix appears to be winning out over Paramount, as it currently does, absent more direct influence by Trump.
Notable
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Traders are betting that Netflix will win out after Warner Bros. told its – shareholders to reject Paramount’s bid, Bloomberg reported.
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Bloomberg’s Matt Levine has a helpful breakdown of why Warner Bros. is skeptical of Paramount’s financing.
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One of Warner Bros.′ largest shareholders says it would be “very open” to a revised offer from Paramount, Reuters reported.
