David Ellison, the billionaire media mogul, feted President Trump and top members of his administration at a private dinner in Washington on Thursday as his company, Paramount, seeks federal approval of a $111 billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.
Senior executives and journalists from CBS News, owned by Paramount, participated in the meeting at the United States Institute of Peace. Bari Weiss, the network’s editor in chief, joined Ellison at the Trump table, and Norah O’Donnell, a former “Evening News” anchor, also attended, according to two people briefed on details of the closed-door event.
Among the guests was Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general. Blanche oversees the Justice Department, whose antitrust division will review the acquisition of Warner Bros. The deal would place CNN and HBO, among other outlets, under Ellison’s control. Paramount Chief Legal Officer Makan Delrahim also sat down with Trump, the people said.
The president spoke for nearly an hour with guests, a group that included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff.
Reporters covering the White House regularly spend time with senior administration officials, and evening events are an integral part of the reporting process. On Saturday, much of Washington’s press corps will attend the White House Correspondents’ Association gala dinner, where Trump is scheduled to speak.
But it’s rare for a national media organization to sponsor an event meant to celebrate the powerful politicians its news division covers, and even rarer when it has a major transaction pending before the federal government. Invitations to the event, which were distributed by Paramount and listed Ellison as host, described the evening as “in honor of the Trump White House.”
Several CBS News journalists said they were taken aback by the existence of the dinner. They described dismay within the CBS newsroom over the event’s potential to create a perception of comfort between the news division and the Trump administration. The journalists requested anonymity to share private and sensitive discussions.
Ellison is the son of Larry Ellison, the billionaire founder of software giant Oracle. Larry Ellison, who did not attend Thursday’s event, appeared with Trump in the Oval Office. David Ellison sat with the president at Ultimate Fighting Championship matches and attended this year’s State of the Union address.
Weiss, an opinion journalist who co-founded The Free Press, has been accused by critics of steering CBS news coverage in a more pro-Trump direction. She says her editorial decisions are her own and that she acts independently of Ellison and Trump. Ellison has said he wants to avoid bias in news coverage.
CBS’ flagship news program “60 Minutes” has aired some tough pieces on the Trump administration in recent weeks, including a segment featuring Trump’s critics in the Roman Catholic Church that sparked a volcanic presidential response. Trump himself has given mixed reviews of the new version of CBS, at times applauding Ellison’s acquisition of the network but also harshly criticizing “60 Minutes” reporting that he considered unfair.
Paramount declined to comment. Representatives for the White House and CBS News did not respond to requests for comment.
Paramount beat out a rival bidder, Netflix, in February to secure its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, a deal that would reshape the American news and information landscape. Warner Bros. shareholders approved the sale this week, but it must be approved by Justice Department regulators.
Trump’s table included first lady Melania Trump and Weiss’s wife, journalist Nellie Bowles, according to the two people briefed on the event.
Other CBS journalists in attendance included Tom Cibrowski, president of CBS News; Jan Crawford, chief legal correspondent; Nancy Cordes, chief White House correspondent; and Weijia Jiang, White House correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Several dozen protesters gathered Thursday outside the Peace Institute, which sits along the National Mall, to attack Ellison and the pending sale of Warner Bros. Some chanted, “Block the merger.”
Miller and Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, are expected to attend Saturday’s correspondents’ dinner as guests of CBS News.
Aishvarya Kavi and tyler pager contributed with reports.
