Netflix refuses Trump’s demand to fire ex-Obama advisor Susan Rice after she said conservatives will be punished when Dems retake power

Trump, in a post late on Saturday, "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."

His post came after a podcast appearance from Rice, in which she claimed that Democrats would go after businesses that worked closely with the Trump administration if the party retakes power. “If these corporations think that Democrats, when they come back in power, are going to play by the old rules, and say, ‘Never mind, we will forgive you for all the people you fired and all the policies and principles you violated, all the laws you skirted,’ I think they got another thing coming," she said.

Rice was an adviser to former President Barack Obama and then served on Netflix's board from 2018 to 2020. After serving in the Biden administration, she went back to the board in 2023. "This is a business deal. It’s not a political deal," Sarandos said in an interview with the BBC. “[Trump] likes to do a lot of things on social media.”

Paramount Sundance, which is the parent company of CBS, has been challenging Netflix's bid to purchase WBD for $83 billion. At the same time, the DOJ is investigating the potential deal from Netflix regarding concerns over monopoly power in the streaming marketplace.

Sarandos met with Trump in November, and at the time, he pitched it as a win for the economy. “We’re buying assets that we don’t currently have,” Sarandos told reporters. “We’re buying a movie studio and a distribution entity that we don’t currently have. We’ll be adding to the market.”

“There’s five major studios left in Hollywood,” he continued. “If the Paramount deal were to go through, it would be four. … This industry will be much smaller under that ownership.”