The deeper the record gets on the Ellisons’ Warner Bros. bid, the uglier the role of California’s Democratic establishment appears. A Wall Street Journal report describes how Gov. Gavin Newsom and other prominent Democrats helped smooth the path for Larry and David Ellison, members of President Trump’s billionaire brigade.

At the federal level, the antitrust review presented little difficulty. David Ellison had reshaped the legendary CBS news team in ways more agreeable to Trump and staged a salute to Trump and his White House staff earlier this year.

The real resistance came from California Attorney General Rob Bonta. He brought what the column describes as a plausible antitrust case against Paramount’s proposed purchase of Warner Bros. and persuaded 11 other state attorneys general, all Democrats, to join the lawsuit.

A judge had scheduled a trial for next March, but the calendar placed considerable pressure on the Ellisons. If the transaction did not close by September 30, they faced financial penalties costing millions of dollars every day.

Rather than test the case at trial, David Ellison pursued a political strategy aimed at isolating Bonta. The effort placed California Democrats in the awkward position of helping Trump aligned billionaires overcome an antitrust challenge brought by a Democratic attorney general.

Ellison threatened to move the studios to Nashville, although the column questions whether that threat was credible. Hollywood unions nevertheless took it seriously, with the exception of the Writers Guild, whose members generally work from home.

Ellison also met several times with Newsom as the political pressure grew. According to the Journal, former Assembly Speaker Fabien Nunez, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and former Sen. Barbara Boxer worked behind the scenes to build support for the merger.

Newsom and current Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass then publicly urged Bonta to reach a settlement. Their intervention amplified the pressure on the attorney general while giving the Ellisons exactly the kind of Democratic cover their strategy required.

Bass faces a serious challenge to her reelection next month. The column notes that she understandably feared appearing indifferent to the possibility that Hollywood could leave Los Angeles for Tennessee.

The episode carries an additional disappointment because Bass and Nunez began their electoral careers with help from the late Miguel Contreras. His leadership of the Los Angeles AFL-CIO moved California politics in a distinctly more progressive direction, while Villaraigosa also benefited significantly from his support.

Right wing studio moguls are hardly a new feature of Hollywood. During Herbert Hoover’s presidency, Louis B. Mayer served as finance chairman of the Republican National Committee and used his studio’s power in California politics.

In 1934, Mayer’s studio scripted and filmed fraudulent newsreels featuring actors playing Bolshevik tramps and thugs. They claimed they would flood California if Democratic nominee and socialist writer Upton Sinclair won that year’s gubernatorial election.

The comparison does Trump no favors. The column describes Hoover as a model small d democrat when measured against Trump, while presenting the Ellisons’ growing influence over American culture and news as part of a deeply dispiriting political story.

Newsom’s role reaches beyond the Warner Bros. fight. He has also assumed de facto leadership of the moderate opposition to the billionaire wealth tax measure appearing on California’s November ballot.

In this assessment, those choices have effectively destroyed Newsom’s claim to progressive backing in the 2028 presidential primaries. That could matter alongside possible contenders including Illinois’s JB Pritzker, Kentucky’s Andy Beshear, Maryland’s Wes Moore, and Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro.

Newsom may have helped the Ellisons isolate Bonta and move their deal closer to completion, but the political price remains his to explain. Progressive voters considering the 2028 field will have plenty to examine when California’s governor comes asking for their support.