Media giant Warner Bros. Discovery was reportedly offered a way into President Donald Trump’s good graces: give his son Donald Trump Jr. his own show.
Specifically, someone in the “Trump orbit” told the company that the first son would like to host a nature show on Discovery, according to a sprawling new profile of WBD’s CEO, David Zaslav, written by Michael Wolff for New York magazine.
Wolff is the author of several books on Trump’s ascent to power and first term, which Trump’s team have repeatedly slammed as containing falsehoods and exaggerations.
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“WBD confirmed that a company representative recently reached out to the Trump orbit seeking advice about how the company might advantageously interact with the White House and improve its Trump-age odor,” Wolff wrote.
While WBD owns several notable properties like Max and the Discovery Channel, it also owns CNN, the news network that for years has been the target of Trump’s anger.
“The reported message was to look at the example of Amazon and Jeff Bezos paying Melania Trump $40 million to participate in a documentary about herself,” he continued. “Don Jr. might like a hunting and fishing show on the Discovery Channel, they were told. And that CNN could have more pro-Trump voices.”
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House communications director Steven Cheung said: “Michael Wolff is a lying sack of s--t and has been proven to be a fraud. He routinely fabricates stories originating from his sick and warped imagination, only possible because he has a severe and debilitating case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his peanut-sized brain.”
Wolff recently drew the Trump administration’s ire after publishing a book on his 2024 presidential campaign, All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America. Asked by the Daily Beast in February about the book’s claims, Cheung also branded the author a “lying sack” of feces with a “peanut-sized brain.”
Representatives for WBD did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment.
The media conglomerate’s reported attempt at currying favor with the president is just one example of a shifting industry landscape trying to adjust to the glaring light of Trump’s second term.
Paramount Global, for example, has reportedly scaled back its diversity, equity, and inclusion programs to appease the Trump administration’s directives as it seeks FCC approval for a merger deal with Hollywood power player Skydance Media.
