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Trump demand that Netflix fire Susan Rice is an extraordinary use of presidential power

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Netflix wants President Donald Trump’s stamp of approval as it maneuvers to buy Warner Bros. Discovery.

Now, Trump has a demand for Netflix: unseat board member Susan Rice.

In normal times, we would all be marveling at the spectacle of the US president telling a company in the midst of a merger fight (Paramount also wants to buy Warner Bros. Discovery) how to structure its board. During Trump 2.0, though, this has become standard stuff. Trump routinely tells companies to fire someone he doesn’t like or do something he does like.

That doesn’t mean Trump always gets what he wants. The demands alone, however, are an extraordinary use of power. We should make sure we don’t become inured to it.

Trump’s Truth Social post is a reminder that the future of Warner Bros. Discovery will run through the White House, no matter what Trump says at any given moment. (Refresher: In December, Trump said, “I’ll be involved” in the fight between Netflix and Paramount. Earlier this month, he announced that “I’ve decided I shouldn’t be involved.” Now he’s telling Netflix it will “pay the consequences” if it doesn’t fire Rice, which sure seems like he’s involved again.)

Trump himself doesn’t have the authority to stop Warner Bros. Discovery from selling itself to Netflix or Paramount, which is controlled by David Ellison and his father, the prominent Trump supporter, Larry Ellison. He can, however, instruct Attorney General Pam Bondi to sue to stop a deal on antitrust grounds.

Modern presidents have traditionally assumed an arm’s-length distance from federal law enforcement. And it’s entirely possible that any other president’s Department of Justice would also look into an antitrust case against Netflix, given its enormous market power.

Trump, however, has made it clear that he expects Bondi to act on his behalf. So if he doesn’t want Netflix to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, he can certainly make it more difficult for them.

Which makes it puzzling that Rice, who held senior roles in the Clinton, Obama, and Biden administrations, would sound off on a podcast, announcing that “elites” and “corporate interests” who accommodated Trump would one day “be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box.“

This wasn’t a mere gaffe or misstatement. She went on at length. It was, regardless of how she intended it, a provocation aimed at the Trump White House — at the exact moment the company she’s supposed to help govern is seeking Trump’s approval.

I’ve asked Netflix for comment on Rice’s comments and Trump’s response.

We should also note that Trump’s most consistent trait is his inconsistency and that he frequently reverses himself. Last summer, for instance, he announced that Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan was “highly CONFLICTED” and must resign. Days later, Trump met with Tan and described him as a “success.” Weeks after that, the US government acquired 10% of Intel.

Nor does Trump always follow through. Last fall, he demanded that Microsoft fire Lisa Monaco, an executive who had also worked for Clinton, Obama, and Biden. Monaco still works for Microsoft.

However, just because we don’t know how serious Trump is about pushing Rice out of Netflix — or how his administration will ultimately rule on the Netflix/Paramount race — doesn’t mean we should shrug this off.

We’re in a place where the president routinely tells companies how to run their businesses and threatens them if they don’t comply. If we get used to that, we shouldn’t be surprised when future presidents decide they can do it, too.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, is a Netflix board member.




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Here’s exactly what Susan Rice said before Trump called on Netflix to fire her from its board.

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President Donald Trump has warned Netflix to remove former US ambassador and national security advisor Susan Rice from its board “or pay the consequences.”

The stakes are high for Netflix: It’s in the middle of trying to execute a mega-deal to buy Warner Bros.

Rice, who served in senior roles in the Obama and Biden administrations, was critical of Trump’s second term in office when she appeared on the “Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara” podcast in an episode published on Thursday. Rice made comments about corporations that “take a knee to Trump,” saying they could face retribution under a subsequent Democratic administration.

After being alerted to Rice’s comments by far-right activist Laura Loomer, Trump posted: “Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences. She’s got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what??? Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT.”

Loomer’s post highlighted comments Rice made about corporations.

Here’s exactly what Rice said on that topic:

“When it comes to the elites, you know, the corporate interests, the law firms, the universities, the media, I agree with you, Preet, it is not, it’s not going to end well for them. For those that decided that it was, you know, that they would act in their perceived very narrow self-interest, which I would underscore is very short-term self-interest, and, you know, take a knee to Trump, I think they’re now starting to realize, ‘Wait a minute, you know, this is not popular.’
“Trump is not popular. What he is doing, whether on the economy and affordability or on immigration, now, is not popular, and that there is likely to be a swing in the other direction, and they are going to be caught with more than their pants down, they’re going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box.
“And I can tell you Preet, you know, as I talk to leaders in Washington, leaders in our party, leaders in the states, if these corporations think that the Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to, you know, play by the old rules and say, ‘Oh, never mind, we’ll forgive you for all the people you fired, all the policies and principles you’ve violated, all, you know, the laws you’ve skirted,’ I think they’ve got another thing coming.”

Netflix’s pursuit of Warner Bros. would require approval from the Department of Justice’s antitrust division.

Trump in December said that Netflix had a “very big market share,” and that its potential acquisition of Warner Bros. “could be a problem.”

However, this month, he said he “shouldn’t be involved” in the deal and would defer to the Department of Justice to investigate the proposed merger.

Paramount, backed by Trump ally Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle cofounder, is also trying to buy Warner Bros.

A White House official told Business Insider last week that Trump “has great relationships with all parties in this potential transaction and remains neutral in this process with no preference for either bidder.”

Netflix’s co-CEO Ted Sarandos said on a podcast appearance last week that Trump had not asked for any political concessions related to the deal.

‘I expected it to be very bad’

In the podcast interview, Rice was critical of Trump on many fronts.

When asked what worried her most about the current political situation, Rice said:

“The thing that worries me, perhaps the very most, is the abrogation of the rule of law in this country, and the fact that, you know, we are now living in a lawless society when the authorities of what is an increasingly authoritarian state exercises, you know, personal police forces, to go and execute the will of the President and do so in blatant violation of American citizens constitutional rights, their First Amendment rights, their Second Amendment rights, their Fourth Amendment rights.”
“And when you have, you know, masked armed men busting into the houses of American citizens and ripping people out of their homes in their underwear and beating them and throwing them to the ground and putting them in cars and disappearing them and denying them access to counsel or their families, when you have the same people shooting American citizens in the street for exercising their First Amendment rights, we are in a very different place, and that worries me enormously.
“And what also worries me, Preet is, you won’t be surprised to hear, is that we’re only at the beginning of what I think they may intend to try and that our very elections and our the fundamental elements of our democracy are profoundly at risk.”

When asked for her assessment of the Trump administration’s past 12 months in office, Rice said:

“Well, I expected it to be very bad, and I guess I would confess that it’s probably worse than I anticipated, but not because they’re doing things that surprised me. They told us exactly what they were going to do.”
“You know, recall Trump saying multiple times on the campaign trail, ‘If you vote for me, this one time, you’ll never have to vote again.’ Or his, you know, pledge to use the American military against the quote, ‘enemy within.’
“You know, you had Stephen Miller, foreshadowing not only the use of the Insurrection Act, but potentially the suspension of habeas corpus and the imposition of martial law. All of these are, you know, they tell you, interestingly, where they intend to head.
“But what surprised me is the speed and the efficacy of their efforts to do what they set out to do, and the fact that they have faced very little resistance from members of their own party, from the private sector, from civil society leaders and university heads and law firms and all of the, you know, the pillars of society, media — that have rolled over and played dead or hidden under rocks.
“So I think the speed and the ease with which they’ve made progress on their agenda, which they laid out very clearly in Project 2025, and elsewhere, is what surprised me more than what they’ve tried to do.”

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, is a Netflix board member.




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Lucia Moses

Who is Susan Rice, the former national security advisor in Trump’s crosshairs?

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President Donald Trump has demanded that Netflix remove former US ambassador and national security advisor Susan Rice from its board, stepping up his criticism of the streaming giant as it seeks to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery amid antitrust scrutiny.

Rice, who served in senior roles in the Obama and Biden administrations, recently warned companies against aligning with Trump. Speaking on the “Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara” podcast published Thursday, she said corporations that “take a knee” to the president and skirt the law should expect consequences, predicting an “accountability agenda” if Democrats take back power.

“There is likely to be a swing in the other direction,” and these companies are “going to be caught with more than their pants down,” Rice said.” They’re going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box.”

Rice, a Democrat, has a long career in US foreign and domestic policy, working under Democratic presidents.

She served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, including roles at the National Security Council and as assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.

Under Obama, Rice served as US ambassador to the UN, becoming the second-youngest person at 44 and the first Black woman to represent the US at the UN. She later served as head of the Domestic Policy Council under Biden.

She was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Stanford with a degree in history. She worked in management consulting for McKinsey and Company before entering government.

Rice has previously faced criticism from the right. In her 2019 memoir, “Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For,” she wrote that she was a frequent “villain” for conservative media.

After the 2012 killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, Republicans accused her of misleading the public in interviews discussing the attacks. She was later cleared by subsequent investigations.

She also faced scrutiny by Trump and his allies for “unmasking” senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York in 2016.

Unmasking is when senior government officials ask to learn the identity of a US citizen whose name has been withheld in intelligence reports about communications, such as intercepted calls. In some situations, national security officials argue that knowing the person’s identity is necessary to interpret and assess the intelligence information.

As UN Ambassador, Rice supported US intervention against Muammar Gaddafi.

Rice has written op-eds supportive of the Biden administration and accusing Trump of undermining democracy. In a 2025 column in The New York Times, Rice accused members of Trump’s national security team of “reckless negligence” after they discussed sensitive national security matters on Signal.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, is a Netflix board member.




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Trump demands Netflix fire Susan Rice from board amid deal talks

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  • Donald Trump has chimed in on the Netflix deal negotiations, despite previously saying he wouldn’t.
  • In a Saturday Truth Social post, the president said Netflix should fire Susan Rice from its board.
  • Rice on Thursday predicted an “accountability agenda” for corporations that “take a knee” to Trump.

President Donald Trump is calling on Netflix to remove former US Ambassador and national security advisor Susan Rice from its board, sharpening his criticism of the streaming giant as it seeks to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery amid antitrust scrutiny.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump demanded that Netflix “immediately terminate” Rice from its board of directors, “or pay the consequences,” amplifying a message from right-wing activist Laura Loomer. Loomer had urged action against Rice, criticizing her role at the company and pointing to recent remarks she made about Trump and corporate America.

Rice, who served in senior roles in the Obama and Biden administrations, recently warned companies against aligning themselves too closely with Trump. Speaking on Thursday on the “Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara” podcast, she said corporations that “take a knee” to the president and break the law should expect consequences, predicting an “accountability agenda” if Democrats take back power.

The clash comes as the streaming giant pursues a high-stakes merger that will require approval from the Department of Justice’s antitrust division.

Trump in December said that Netflix had a “very big market share,” so its potential acquisition of Warner Bros. “could be a problem.”

However, in February, he said he “shouldn’t be involved” in the deal and would defer to his Department of Justice to investigate the proposed merger, Business Insider previously reported.

Earlier this week, during an appearance on Puck’s “The Town” podcast, Netflix’s co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, said that Trump hadn’t asked for political concessions during discussions of the possible deal, but was focused on bringing jobs back to Hollywood after years of lower production.

Representatives for Netflix and Rice did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.




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