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President Donald Trump is being honored by the next potential owner of CNN ahead of the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Breaker Media reported Tuesday that Paramount CEO David Ellison is hosting an “intimate gathering” at the newly-named Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, formerly known as the United States Institute of Peace, on April 23, just two days before Trump is set to attend the annual media gala for the first time as president.
According to a copy of the invitation obtained by Breaker Media, the dinner will be “honoring the Trump White House and CBS White House Correspondents.”
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Ellison is currently pursuing a $110 billion merger with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). If successful, he will oversee both CBS News and CNN. Trump has been vocal in his demands for new leadership at CNN during Paramount’s bidding war for the network’s parent company against Netflix.
Critics of the merger point to the perceived coziness between Ellison and Trump, fearing that Ellison will remake CNN into a pro-MAGA network. Ellison’s billionaire father, Oracle founder Larry Ellison, is financially backing Paramount’s bid and is a top Trump ally in Silicon Valley.
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In a recent interview, Ellison insisted CNN would maintain “editorial independence” but that the goal would be to appeal to the 70% in the center left and center right instead of the political fringes.
Neither Paramount nor the White House immediately responded to Fox News Digital’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for CNN declined to comment.
While Ellison has a long path ahead of him before he’s officially handed the keys to WBD, he will likely face minimal resistance from the Trump administration, which previously gave the green light to his $8 billion Paramount-Skydance merger last year.
Breaker Media previously reported that Ellison-owned CBS News has invited Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller to sit at the network’s table at the White House Correspondents Dinner.
“We invite officials from the Administration every year regardless of who’s in office,” a CBS News spokesperson told Breaker Media. “That’s because it’s our job to be in the room with sources who matter.”
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