Biden Judge Halts Paramount’s $110B Acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery After California Lawsuit

The Democrats’ all out war to kill the Paramount–Discovery deal exposes just how desperately they cling to their media stranglehold. Their power to dismantle America has always depended on controlling the commanding heights of media, entertainment, and academia—poisoning minds, laundering propaganda, and selling lies as truth.
Related: Skydance Tells Trump They’ll Conduct ‘Comprehensive’ Editorial Bias Review’ at CBS and End DEI Initiatives at Paramount and Bolster News Integrity at CBS

Judge pauses Paramount’s $110B acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery after California lawsuit

By Taylor Herzlich, NY Post, July 20, 2026:

A federal judge on Monday slapped Paramount’s $110 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery with a temporary restraining order, after a group of 12 Democratic state attorneys general led by California sued to block the deal, arguing it would harm consumers and reduce competition.

US District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín of the Northern District of California, a Biden appointee, issued the order barring Paramount from closing the transaction for 14 days, scheduling an Aug. 3 hearing for the states’ motion for a preliminary injunction – a more serious potential freeze of the mega-merger.

Executives at Paramount and Warner Bros. had reportedly been expecting such a decision – but the real concern is whether a preliminary injunction will be granted, pushing the tie-up dangerously closer to a crucial September deadline.

An aerial view of the Paramount Studios lot with a white water tower bearing the Paramount logo on the right, surrounded by various studio buildings.
[…]

“This merger is lawful, pro-competitive, and will benefit consumers, creators, workers, and the entertainment industry. We will continue to vigorously defend the transaction and will look forward to the hearings on the substance of the State AGs’ action.”

Warner Bros. Discovery declined to comment. The White House did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.

The deal would combine HBO Max, Paramount+, HBO, CBS, CNN and thousands of movie titles under one company, led by David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire and close Trump ally Larry Ellison.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Dem, has argued the merger would lead to “higher prices, lower quality, and less content for film and television, harming movie theaters, basic cable distributors, and ultimately, audiences on every sofa and movie theater seat in the US.”

Aerial view of the Warner Bros. Studio lot in Burbank, California.

The states’ July 13 lawsuit argued the new conglomerate would control nearly one-third of the US theatrical film distribution market and almost one-third of the nation’s basic cable programming.

It was filed just days after reports that advisers close to Ellison had encouraged him to consider relocating Paramount’s headquarters and shifting as much as $30 billion in planned spending outside California if Bonta sued to stop the merger.

“From the attorneys general lawsuit perspective, the longer they can play this out, the more negotiating leverage they can have,” Derek Reisfield, a former media executive at CBS News and McKinsey who co-founded MarketWatch, told The Post.

“This is all about a negotiation, because if you step back and look at the monthly churn for HBO Max and Paramount+…the business models are not sustainable. They have to do the deal.”

CNN, on the other hand, is likely safe.

Continued….