We’ve got elections in several states today, results of which we’ll cover on tomorrow’s BradCast. But we’ve got plenty of election related news to cover today nonetheless. Also, coverage of the corrupt Trump DOJ’s corrupt approval on Friday of the huge media mega-merger that could (will?) end up killing CNN. [Audio to full show follows this summary.]
FIRST… A correction! On yesterday’s show, I somehow mentioned that the Las Vegas Golden Knights won the NHL’s Stanley Cup finals over the weekend. In fact, the Carolina Hurricanes took the title in Vegas over the weekend! Thanks to eagle-eared listener Dan in MN who corrected my error, which I both apologize for and explain on today’s program. Whoops!
Meanwhile, hopefully better-informed voters than I took to the polls on Tuesday for midterm primaries and primary runoffs — and even Special Elections — in Georgia, Alabama, Oklahoma, Washington D.C. and California. Results, as available, on tomorrow’s program. However, speaking of Nevada, we did have a call made today on one of the state’s key primary elections held last week.
2020 election denier Jim Marchant will be the Republican nominee to head up the state’s elections as Sec. of State this November. He will, once again, face Francisco Aguilar, the state’s Democratic incumbent SoS, who narrowly defeated him back in 2022. Marchant was with the state’s GOP fake electors back in 2020 when they fraudulently signed their name to a phony certification proclaiming Trump the winner of the state that year, in hopes of helping him steal the election from Joe Biden. Angling again to be the swing-state NV’s top election official, Marchant famously claimed he actually won in 2022, and that “the people of Nevada have not elected anybody since 2006. They’ve been installed by the deep state cabal.” Kinda weird, since both Trump and a Republican Governor won the state in 2024. But whatevs.
Speaking of fake electors and GOP election deniers, 2020 denier Vernon Jones is on the GOP runoff ballot today in Georgia, hoping to become the next SoS in that battleground state, while actual fake elector, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (same last name, no relation to Vernon), was also on today’s runoff ballot for the Republican gubernatorial nomination in the critical Presidential battleground.
And in still more 2020 fake elector news today, three Trumpers behind the plot to create fake electors in Wisconsin — Trump’s 2020 WI campaign attorney, Jim Troupis, his 2020 Director of Election Day operations, Mike Roman, and his former legal advisor (who helped hatch the fake electors plot), Ken Chesebro, were all arraigned in state criminal court on Tuesday, as they each face 11 felony counts related to forgery in the failed plot. Each count could win them as many as six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. More details on today’s program.
THEN… Now that Trump’s pal David Ellison has broken CBS News and 60 Minutes (and removed Trump antagonist Stephen Colbert from the public airwaves), apparently, it’s on to CNN.
On Friday — reportedly against the advice of career attorneys at the Dept. of Justice — the DOJ nonetheless approved Ellison’s $111 billion Paramount Skydance purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns CNN. In addition to objections from longtime DOJers, the merger is already facing lawsuits and a threat of another by a couple dozen state Attorneys general who who oppose the deal as a violation of anti-trust laws.
We’re joined today by JOHN BERGMAYER, Legal Director at the nonpartisan good government outlet Public Knowledge in D.C., where he focuses on consumer rights in the digital era, and specializes in telecommunications, media, internet, and intellectual property issues. The group opposes the merger.
We discuss what he describes as “an absolutely exhausting litany of corrupt acts” that led to Friday’s greenlight of the Paramount-Warner deal, before he notes: “No matter what kind of freedom you subscribe to — if you believe in free markets, the free press, the rule of law — it violates all of them.”
Bergmayer explains that he is mostly concerned about what it all means for news coverage, especially after we’ve seen what happened when Skydance took over Paramount and placed Bari Weiss, with no experience in TV news, in charge of CBS News to make it both more Trump-friendly and, in the bargain, breaking the legendary news outlet and iconic 60 Minutes in the bargain. According to a number of reports, Weiss may be put in charge of destroying CNN as well, once the Paramount-Warner merger is fully closed.
“Iit matters a lot to democracy,” Bergmayer warns, “with the corruption of the coverage of the administration by a major news network that is basically in thrall to him.”
He also describes the DOJ claim on Friday that the deal will increase competition and benefit both consumers and workers as laughable. He doesn’t believe any other Administration would have approved this deal, at least not without serious conditions in place.
“This one is just a flat anti-trust violation,” Bergmayer tells me. “There are so many harms. This looks purely like empire building. It looks like an attempt to control major news outlets to shape the public narrative in ways that are favorable to the billionaire class. I don’t see how, as the DOJ says, this is a merger that somehow enhances competition. I don’t even see the theory, much less whether I agree with it.”
We discuss much more on all of this, including whether the deal can still be stopped by the state Attorneys General lawsuit, or even ended — broken up — by a future Administration, and why all of these media mergers are suddenly happening right now in the industry. Tune in for the details on that and…yes, before the ink was even dry on DOJ’s Friday approval of the Paramount-Warner deal…yet another mega-merger was announced on Monday. The Rupert Murdoch family-owned Fox announced it will be buying the nation’s largest TV streaming platform, Roku, for $22 billion dollars. If the deal closes, it would put Fox straight into control of streaming devices in about 90 million American households and 100 million across the globe.
FINALLY… Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, on Trump’s supposed new deal to open the Strait of Hormuz; a stunning winter heat wave in Antarctica (60* F!); the Admin’s opening to commercial plundering of national monument-protected oceans; and some otherwise good news from a federal court this week regarding our National Park system…
Faux already has Tubi and FoxOne; this Roku should be rejected.
To be more accurate here, it’s not just the Roku CHANNEL that Fox is buying. It’s the entire company, including ownership of their streaming stick platform and Roku-enabled TVs!