America First? Paramount Finalizes $24 Billion In Middle East Backing For Warner Bros Deal

MAGA Republicans spent year swaddling themselves in phony “America first!” rhetoric (including suffering an embolism over Chinese influence over TikTok), but have suddenly gone mysteriously quiet now that $24 billion in Saudi, Chinese, and other foreign cash is helping to bankroll right wing billionaire Larry Ellison’s $111 billion acquisition of Warner Brothers.

The Wall Street Journal (Reuters non-paywalled alternative) indicates that Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) has finalized plans to ‌provide ⁠roughly $10 billion to help fund the deal, with another $14 billion split between Qatar Investment Authority and Abu Dhabi’s L’imad Holding. China’s Tencent is also expected to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars to fund Ellison’s media play.

Because the Trump administration is a corrupt, pay-to-play kakistocracy subservient to the interests of global oligarchs and autocrats, Paramount executives don’t expect any meaningful regulatory review, despite the obvious competition, labor, and foreign influence issues that plague the major deal:

Paramount executives do not expect the funds’ involvement ⁠to trigger ​a review by the Committee ​on Foreign Investment in the U.S. or Federal Communications Commission, the Journal ​said.

The Trump DOJ claims it’s conducting a serious review (and has already sent out some subpoenas), but despite media pretense, there’s absolutely zero reason to assume the DOJ is a credible actor in this arena, especially after the Trump administration purged the handful of even remotely serious antitrust reformers peppered without the ranks of MAGA.

As a result, the only semi-serious obstacle to deal completion is a likely looming lawsuit from a coalition of state attorneys general, who have ample evidence that the deal will result in mass layoffs and higher prices due to the ridiculous $111 billion price tag and broad competitive erosion.

That’s before you even get to the problems with having Middle East countries back the ongoing Republican plan to dominate consolidated corporate media and destroy what’s left of U.S. journalism. Democrats have performatively urged FCC boss Brendan Carr to investigate, but that’s obviously not happening, despite Carr’s history of phony outrage at foreign government meddling.

This has all been a pretty standard road map for autocracies around the world, including Orban’s Hungary. Party-friendly oligarchs buy up all the media, which then gets to work pummeling the public with right wing propaganda while the government strangles independent journalism just out of frame.

It will continue to accelerate here in the States until the public reaches critical mass and our so-called “opposition party” develops an actual, functional backbone and cultivates more ruthless leadership.