President Donald Trump spoke for nearly an hour at a dinner party hosted by David Ellison on Thursday evening in Washington, D.C., to honor Trump, according to a report from The New York Times.
Ellison arranged the event to celebrate Trump and acknowledge CBS News’ White House reporters as his company, Paramount Skydance, seeks approval from the Trump administration’s Justice Department for its $111 billion acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. This followed an overwhelming approval by WBD shareholders for the sale to Paramount on Wednesday.
In addition to senior members of the Trump administration, the event was attended by Bari Weiss, editor in chief of CBS News; former “CBS Evening News” anchor Norah O’Donnell; Tom Cibrowski, president of CBS News; Jan Crawford, chief legal correspondent for the network; chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes; and Weijia Jiang, a White House correspondent at CBS News and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association.
Weiss joined Ellison at Trump’s table, along with her wife Nellie Bowles, First Lady Melania Trump, and Paramount’s chief legal officer Makan Delrahim, who was a DOJ antitrust official during Trump’s first term, as reported by the Times.
Among Ellison’s other dinner guests were Todd Blanche, who became acting U.S. attorney general after Trump dismissed Pam Bondi earlier in the month. According to the Times, “Mr. Blanche oversees the Justice Department, whose antitrust division is set to review the Warner Bros. acquisition.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Stephen Miller, deputy White House chief of staff, were also present, as noted in the report.
The Times report did not specify what Trump discussed during his almost one-hour speech.
Within CBS News, staff expressed concerns about the event potentially creating a perception of closeness between the news division and the Trump administration, according to the Times article.
A spokeswoman for Paramount Skydance declined to comment. The White House and CBS News did not respond to requests for comment on Friday.
The dinner took place two days before the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner on Saturday, April 25, where Trump is also expected to attend. The Ellison-hosted dinner on April 23, which began with cocktails at 6:15 p.m., was held at the United States Institute of Peace in Washington. In December, the State Department announced it was being renamed “The Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace.”
After Paramount Skydance outbid Netflix to acquire Warner Bros., there were private concerns among CNN staff that Paramount’s ownership could influence CNN’s coverage toward a more conservative approach. Weiss, whose digital news outlet The Free Press was purchased by Paramount last fall, has caused unrest within CBS News ranks. Ellison has assured that CNN’s “editorial independence will absolutely be maintained.”
