'To slop': Jane Fonda skewers Donald Trump

Larry and David Ellison, the billionaire father-and-son buying up media empires and making them support President Donald Trump, are being skewered by a Hollywood legend, longtime acting superstar Jane Fonda.

In a satirical video from Fonda’s Committee for the First Amendment, Emmy-nominated actor Ed Begley Jr. asks an unseen casting director how his work has been. He replied with a depressed tone.

“It’s been slow,” Begley said. “You know, there’s only the Rush Hour movies. It’s one flavor.”

The video references how the Ellisons, who purchased Paramount earlier this year, have now been able to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery after Netflix dropped its competing bid following a White House meeting. In the same video, Fonda jokes “I can’t get any movies that I want made. I’m hoping Rush Hour... will please the right people and maybe I’ll get a job.” The video also includes appearances from Hollywood stars like Yvette Nicole Brown, Kirsten Vangsness, Bobby Berk, Jodie Sweetin and Anthony Roy Davis.

Fonda’s video references how Trump reportedly used his influence to “fast-track” production on a new sequel in the “Rush Hour” action comedy franchise. Trump also reportedly has had discussions with Paramount about firing specific CNN reporters who he dislikes, including Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar.

“President Donald Trump is not the sort of old-fashioned Republican who believes businesses should operate unfettered from government interference,” reported The Week at the time. “Instead, he is now telling Netflix to fire a prominent board member who once worked for the Obama administration.”

In this vein The Bulwark, a conservative publication, speculated that Trump’s desire to create a monopoly of pro-Trump media outlets will not reach fruition simply by taking over CNN.

“Trump’s head is stuck in the 80s so he may not have noticed that cable is dying,” conservative commentators Tim Miller and Amanda Carpenter wrote in their Friday podcast episode. “All he can think about is getting his greedy little hands on CNN so he can make them say nice things about him. But independent outlets—like The Bulwark— are changing the media space and are beyond the reach of a corrupted FCC. Nevertheless, our screens are going to be filled with vast quantities of pro-MAGA propaganda.”

One business journalist speculated that the Ellisons purchased Warner Brothers Discovery precisely so they could control CNN.

“The question nobody is asking is the one that keeps me up at night: what has already been arranged for the one asset the president demanded change hands, in the one company where someone quietly built the legal infrastructure to make it happen, five months ago, before anyone was looking?” business journalist Audrey Henson wrote on Substack prior to Netflix’s withdrawal being announced.