Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) questioned Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos over reports that he met with President Donald Trump on Nov. 24, just weeks before the Warner Bros. deal was announced.
Trump has said that he would be involved in the merger review, but Sarandos said that the potential transaction was a smaller part of his conversation with the president compared to broader issues about the entertainment industry, including production incentives, tariffs and runaway production.
Asked by Booker whether it is appropriate for Trump to be involved in the review, Sarandos said he had confidence that the transaction would be review “on the merits” by the DOJ.
Booker also asked Sarandos about Trump’s purchase of Netflix and Warner Bros. Discovery corporate bonds.
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Commits To 45-Day Theatrical Window, Grilled By Republican Over Transgender Content: Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said that the company would commit to a 45-day theatrical window with its purchase of Warner Bros.
“I just said I would do that under oath,” Sarandos told Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), in the most contentious part of the hearing so far.
Hawley displayed a chart showing a dramatic decline in American-made film production, but Sarandos noted that the stats were of Los Angeles, not nationwide.
Like other lawmakers, Hawley expressed concerns over the impact of the transaction on the labor market, and tried to press him on the payment of residuals.
“You have been routinely accused of compressing and reducing residuals,” Hawley said.
Sarandos said that it was a “very complicated answer,” and pointed to upcoming union contract negotiations.
The senator also pressed Sarandos on Netflix content, asking him, “Why is it that so much of Netflix content for children promotes a transgender ideology?”
Sarandos said that the company has “no political agenda of any kind.”
Hawley continued to press him, claiming that Netflix’s children’s programming was “so full of a highly sexualized, highly controversial, agenda.”
Sarandos, though, said that Hawley was “inaccurate.”
“We have millions of hours of children’s programming…we feature a wide variety of stories and programs to meet a wide variety of people’s taste.”
Sarandos said that Netflix has “state of the art tools” for parents to manage choices and block any title they may be offended by.
During the hearing, Netflix put out a statement on residuals, saying, “Netflix is part of the AMPTP, and AMPTP-Guild agreements have provided payments, called residuals, for reuse of motion pictures in additional distribution platforms such as cable, syndication, DVDs, producers of streaming content and other media. Netflix and streamers pay residuals — according to the WGA, residuals have reached an all time high of $493.9M (up 5% from ‘20 to ‘23) — streaming accounts for ~45%, of which the lions’ share comes from Netflix.”
Sen. Josh @HawleyMO: Why is it that so much of Netflix’s content for children promotes a transgender ideology?
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos: Netflix has no political agenda of any kind…We feature a wide variety of stories and programs to meet a wide variety of people’s tastes. pic.twitter.com/2JEOqy5De7
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 3, 2026
Ted Sarandos Challenged On Argument That YouTube Is A Main Streaming Rival: Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos was grilled on his argument that the company’s rivals include YouTube, something that would factor in how the Trump administration Justice Department and other regulators examine the Warner Bros. deal.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) repeatedly pressed Sarandos on the differences between Netflix, a subscription offering, and YouTube, which is generally offered for free.
“It’s not full length feature films written by screenwriters produced by full studios, is it?” Lee asked.
Sarandos, however, said that there was “increasingly the exact same programming” as on other platforms, citing such things as clips of Saturday Night Live.”
He also noted the sophisticated content of creators on YouTube, as well as the platform’s purchase of the rights to the Oscars.
“About 50% of the engagement on YouTube today happens in the living room on a TV, not on … a mobile service, and growing very fast on television.”
“So if you’re watching YouTube, you’re not watching HBO Max, you’re not watching Netflix, you’re not watching CBS,” he said.
Senators Open Netflix Hearing With Serious Concerns: As Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos faced a Senate subcommittee over its proposed acquisition of Warner Bros., lawmakers in both parties pressed serious concerns over the combination, citing in particular the streaming giant’s dominance.
The chair of the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), said that the transaction was “extraordinary in both in scale and potential consequence” and that it “raises serious antitrust concerns that warrant scrutiny.”
While Lee warned of the consolidation of streaming platforms, he also expressed concern of what it would do to the labor market, in that Netflix and WB compete for creative talent.
“Consolidating two major employers in the same market inevitably have an impact on the competition for that labor,” Lee said.
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos testifies before the Senate Judiciary antitrust subcommittee.
He also raised issues with “vertical foreclosure,” in that the merged firm would have the “incentive to put rivals at a disadvantage.”
“It could withhold marquee titles, it could raises licensing fees, it could favor its own content with recommendations on a platform of Netflix’s size and reach.”
Lee also expressed concerns that the merger would impact theatrical distribution and over Netflix’s data trove.
Sen. Cory Booker, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, said that he invited Paramount CEO David Ellison to the hearing, but he declined. Paramount is making a rival bid for all of Warner Bros. Discovery. Booker said that Ellison told him he did not find participating in a public hearing “useful or helpful.” The ranking member did reveal that he had a private meeting with Ellison, but noted he would have preferred to see the CEO out in public like Sarandos.
Booker expressed concerns about Netflix and Paramount taking control of the fabled studio.
“With a merger like this, I have real concerns about art, about culture, about the voices of Americans, about the moral imagination of a nation,” Booker said. He warned of the combination of Netflix as a dominant streaming platform. “I have concerns about Netflix getting more power over consumers and leaving fewer alternatives and streaming platforms,” he said.
Also testifying at the hearing was Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Since the $82.7 billion mega deal was announced in December, Netflix executives have discussed the transaction with the Justice Department Antitrust Division, European Union authorities and some state attorneys general.
But the wild card has been President Donald Trump, who has said that he would be involved in the regulatory process. While has offered words of praise for Sarandos, he’s also done so for Paramount’s new management. Ellison’s father, Larry, is one of Trump’s longtime supporters, while the company’s chief legal officer, Makan Delrahim, served as DOJ antitrust chief in the first Trump term.
More recently, the president posted a video warning against the Netflix transaction, while he told Deadline last week that he had concerns about a monopoly, although he was not clear about which of the rivals for Warner Bros. he was talking about.
At the hearing, Booker blasted Trump for “using government power to reward allies, punish perceived enemies and enable private enrichment in ways we have not seen before.” He was referring to Trump’s purchase of corporate bonds from Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery after the deal was announced.
On Capitol Hill, some lawmakers have lined up behind Netflix and others behind Paramount, while other figures, like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) are warning about either transaction. The possibility that Trump will try to influence the process — defying decades of norms — also is a worry, albeit some Democrats have hopes that Abigail Slater, the current Justice Department Antitrust Division chief, will maintain her independence.
The DOJ would have to sue to block the merger, and Netflix has signaled a willingness to challenge such a move in court. That carries with it significant risks, albeit the company is said to be confident that they have legal precedent on their side.
The company has been pitching the transaction as “pro-competitive” and “pro-consumer,” which are pretty boilerplate for major mergers facing regulatory scrutiny.
The most challenging part for Netflix appears to be in streaming, where would be acquiring HBO Max, a rival in premium subscription content. Netflix sees the competitive landscape as including a robust number of competitors, including Disney/Hulu/ESPN, Amazon Prime and YouTube, the latter of which draws a larger share of TV screen time. The company also argues that 80% of HBO Max subscribers also have Netflix, and those choices will continue post-acquisition, with the option for a cheaper bundle.
Netflix also is casting its acquisition of Warner Bros. as largely a vertical merger, a contrast to the combination of Paramount with all of Warner Bros. Discovery, which would combine two of Hollywood’s legacy studios.
Delrahim has dismissed Netflix’s argument that its competitive landscape includes YouTube. In a letter to lawmakers last month, Delrahim wrote that the broader market definition was “tortured and absurd” and something that “no serious regulator would ever accept.”
He wrote, “It asserts, for example, that free, user-generated videos on YouTube and TikTok should be considered an adequate substitute for premium produced content available on Netflix or HBO Max. This is what some call ‘psychedelic antitrust’ — it has no ground in market or legal reality.”
Delrahim also argued that Netflix had previously dismissed the idea that YouTube was a rival. pointing to securities filings in which “it compared itself to actual competitors in streaming video on demand.”
Last week Heritage Foundation spinoff the Oversight Project put out a report slamming Netflix “as holding an outsized role in socially engineering millions of Americans into a predisposition to accept preferred leftwing ideological dogma.” Having handed the Fedflix document to the White House and Sen. Lee’s office, Oversight Project boss Mike Howell bluntly told Deadline that “I don’t want Netflix to get bigger at all. I want it to have less influence.”
Howell added: “This seemed like an opportune moment to raise this issue in the context of Netflix’s ambition plan to build the biggest political and ideology messaging machine in human history.”
