By Steve King
Earlier in July, a dozen mostly blue states sued Paramount Skydance for trying to purchase Warner Bros. Discovery.
Why? Because the Trump administration approved the deal and Democrats can’t help but sue anything the president touches.
It’s like a tic or a bad itch. Trump wakes up in the morning, and they immediately call their lawyers.
The Paramount-Warner Bros. lawsuit is especially ridiculous because earlier this year, Warner Bros. tried to merge with a different company, Netflix. Democrats opposed that merger, with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders issuing their usual grumbling noises.
Then Trump agreed, expressing skepticism over Netflix gaining such vast market power. Netflix ultimately withdrew, and Warner Bros. instead decided to merge with Paramount, a deal that Trump approved.
So now Democrats are suing Paramount.
Make no mistake, Democrats’ opposition isn’t about corporate power or economic concentration. The new company would actually be smaller than the Netflix deal Democrats didn’t sue over, and it would help lower prices for consumers. Democrats aren’t defending competition here — they’re allergic to anything with Trump’s fingerprints on it.
The fact that Paramount isn’t Never-Trump like they are is the icing on the cake. Larry Ellison, a prominent and vocal Trump backer and donor, helped fund the deal, and the company has been actively making programming changes to make their content less left-leaning.
RELATED: Biden-Appointed Judge Pauses Paramount-Warner Bros. Megamerger
Blocking this deal is all part of Democrats’ unending lawfare campaign, which hit its peak when a Manhattan jury convicted Trump on bogus charges in 2024 but continues today.
In fact, back in April, Democrats hit a major milestone. Just over a year into the second Trump administration, they filed their 100th lawsuit against the president.
You never forget your big 100, and no doubt plenty of tears were shed. The attorney general of Oregon took the occasion to wax poetical about having been a party to more than half of these lawsuits. How much is that costing the taxpayers of his state?
Remember that this litigation is coming from attorneys general, meaning they’re suing with taxpayer funds. NewsNation calculated that just the 2024 trial of Donald Trump — let alone the investigation and prosecution — cost New Yorkers $50,000 per day.
Why is it acceptable for Democrats to waste their own constituents’ money on an obsessive legal crusade? One that cuts against the expressed will of the electorate?
Among the many things Democrats are suing Trump over is his recent executive order that attempts to secure mail-in voting.
Postal ballots were pretty rare until the 1970s and didn’t hit their peak until the COVID pandemic. Yet Democrats’ lawsuit acts like people have a constitutional right to vote by mail, with Trump an enemy of democracy for daring to apply safeguards.
Even when Trump gives up power, Democrats think he’s an authoritarian. In February, the EPA revoked the so-called endangerment finding, stripping the Trump administration’s authority over greenhouse gases and the chemical composition of the atmosphere. This ended one of Washington’s most audacious power grabs.
Guess what? Democrats sued him over that too.
According to a tracker set up by Lawfare Media, there are currently 332 active cases pending against the Trump administration. They cover everything from the renaming of the Kennedy Center to the cutting of red tape to the apparent belief that the president should be able to hire his own employees.
Some of these lawsuits were filed by individuals or nonpartisan organizations. But most of them come from groups with a “D” after their names. This is partisan warfare waged in the courtroom.
Of all the litigation, it’s the antitrust suits like the one against Paramount that have Democrats tied in the most knots. The left is essentially trying to continue the Biden administration’s anti-business policies in exile, suing companies because Trump won’t sue them.
When the Trump administration settled a lawsuit against Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) for trying to purchase Juniper Networks, it was with good reason. The intelligence community had intervened, noting that the new HPE-Juniper tech company would have the global scale to compete with Huawei, the Chinese conglomerate widely considered a national security threat.
Yet Democrats on the Judiciary Committee and state attorneys general promptly turned up the lawfare. National security, states’ rights — what matters is that they get to blow raspberries at the president.
Ultimately, this isn’t about the law but political power. As one news outlet noted, lawfare is “one of the few paths Democrats have available to oppose President Donald Trump’s actions, with Republicans controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress.”
Voters rejected them, so Democrats have to rely on unelected judges. That sounds far more undemocratic than new rules on mail-in ballots.
If Democrats want more power, there is a constitutional mechanism available: win an election. Until then, lawsuits should not become a substitute for governing — and judges should not become an unelected shadow administration.
Steve King is a former Republican congressman from Iowa.
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