CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins confronted President Donald Trump at the United Nations over when the war with Iran would end, citing a poll that found two-thirds of Americans did not believe the United States was winning.

“I’m surprised that CNN is here covering me,” Trump said before telling Collins: “You should not be here covering me. You said you weren’t going to cover me. You shouldn’t be covering me.”

Collins replied that the United Nations had allowed CNN into the General Assembly, despite Trump having banned CNN, along with MSNOW — the cable news channel formerly known as MSNBC — and Politico, from covering his White House days earlier because he objected to their coverage. Collins repeated her question twice, but Trump did not answer.

The exchange is cited by Robert Reich as an example of the pressure facing CNN as California Attorney General Rob Bonta has allowed billionaire Larry Ellison and his son, David Ellison, to take over the network. Reich writes that Bonta apparently agreed after the Ellisons threatened to begin moving Paramount’s operations out of California in October if Bonta refused to settle an antitrust lawsuit against them. An antitrust suit brought by a state can block or delay a major acquisition, which is what gives an attorney general leverage in a moment like this; a settlement removes that legal obstacle.

Reich argues that Trump’s broader objective has been to place a large group of media properties under the control of the Ellisons — Larry Ellison is the billionaire co-founder of the software company Oracle — whose holdings would include CBS News, CNN, Comedy Central, HBO and TikTok. Paramount, the Ellisons’ existing media company, already operates CBS News, so a completed Warner Bros. Discovery deal would add CNN, HBO and Comedy Central to a portfolio spanning both news and entertainment. TikTok is cited in a Pew Research Center report as a platform where one in five Americans now regularly gets news — a share the report says is up sharply from 2020.

“What’s next for CNN?” Reich asks. He says he does not expect the network to be dismantled because that would be too conspicuous, but instead predicts that it will be “defanged.”

As precedent, Reich points to the Ellisons’ ownership of CBS. He says they allowed CBS to end Stephen Colbert’s tenure by declining to renew his contract and made major changes at CBS News and its flagship program, “60 Minutes,” including firing Scott Pelley and other senior producers who did not support Trump.

In a farewell memo to colleagues, one departing producer wrote that she could no longer work in an environment where stories were “evaluated not just on their journalistic merit, but on whether they conform to a shifting set of ideological expectations — a dynamic that pressures producers and reporters to self-censor or avoid challenging narratives that might trigger backlash or unfavorable headlines.”

Reich says the Ellisons’ treatment of CBS News offers grounds for questioning whether CNN, Comedy Central or HBO would be managed differently. The Guardian and other outlets have reported on developments involving CNN and its ownership.

When Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN’s parent company, was put up for sale, Trump said it was “imperative” that CNN be sold as part of the transaction. Speaking to reporters at a White House event, he said: “CNN should be sold because the people that are running CNN right now are either corrupt or incompetent.”

He continued: “I think any, it should be guaranteed and certain that CNN is part of it or sold separately, but I don’t think the people that are running that company right now and running CNN — which is a very dishonest group of people — I don’t think that should be allowed to continue. I think CNN should be sold along with everything else.”

In December, after a CNN reporter asked Trump a question he disliked, the president responded: “You know you work for the Democrats, don’t you? You’re basically an arm of the Democrat Party.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, David Ellison promised Trump that he would make “sweeping changes” at CNN if permitted to acquire its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery. A White House official also discussed possible programming changes at CNN with Larry Ellison, including the potential firing of reporters Erin Burnett and Brianna Keilar, whom Trump is reported to dislike. The transaction has not yet been completed, so how — and whether — those reported plans shape CNN’s lineup and coverage is the immediate development to watch as the deal process continues.

At a March press briefing, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticized a CNN report stating that the Trump administration had underestimated Iran’s ability to disrupt global oil traffic by closing the Strait of Hormuz. “Patently ridiculous,” Hegseth said, adding that “the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

Reich characterizes these developments as part of what he calls a “neofascist playbook”: media acquisitions by political allies followed by efforts to limit criticism. He argues that billionaire owners may have additional financial incentives to suppress criticism as they expand their media holdings.

He cites Jeff Bezos’ ownership of The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s transformation of Twitter into what Reich calls a global “neofascist X,” and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s control of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads. Reich says the Ellisons’ ownership of CBS News, CNN, Comedy Central and HBO would add to that concentration. Consolidation on that scale comes as the news industry has been shedding newsrooms and journalists for years, leaving fewer independent outlets overall.

“What do you get when you combine the richest people in America with the biggest media corporations in America with the thinnest-skinned and most corrupt president in American history?” Reich asks. “One thing you don’t get is an informed public.”

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and a former secretary of labor. His writings are available at robertreich.substack.com. The original commentary was published by Alternet.