UPDATE: There is a DC angle buried in the filing. Iowa and Montana tell the Supreme Court that Warner Bros. is “frozen” and needs Paramount’s approval for certain decisions, which is what we have been reporting since August 6.
The op-ed is now a filing, and Iowa picked up a partner.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird and Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen have asked the Supreme Court to let them sue the 12 states behind the lawsuit that has frozen Paramount’s $110 billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Bird announced the plan in an August 25 Daily Wire op-ed that gave no filing date.
Montana is new. Knudsen, a fellow Republican, signed on, and the targets are California and the 11 other states that sued in July.
The ask is simple: the Supreme Court shuts down California’s case, rules the merger is legal, and does it fast.
How The Supreme Court Could Take The Case Away From Bonta
The rule Iowa and Montana are leaning on is one Congress wrote into law: when one state sues another, the only court that can hear it is the Supreme Court.
For 50 years, though, the Court has treated that as optional and turned away most state-versus-state fights without a hearing.
Iowa and Montana say the law gives the Court no choice.
The filing asks the Court to hold a hearing on that question and settle it for good. If it does, every lawsuit one state files against another gets heard, not just this one.
There is a backup argument. Iowa and Montana say they can’t simply join California’s case in San Francisco, because once one state sues another there, that court loses the power to hear it.
So either the Supreme Court takes the case, or they walk into Bonta’s courtroom and argue it has to be thrown out. The filing points to a 1990s fight between Mississippi and Louisiana where exactly that happened.
Then there is the clock. The trial is set for March 2-19, 2027.
Wait for that, the filing says, and the case reaches the Supreme Court on a rushed, emergency basis between April and June, after billions in costs. June 4, 2027, is the date reported when Warner Bros. can walk away from the deal.
Take the case now, Iowa and Montana argue, and the Court can assign a special master to gather the facts on a fast schedule and still have time to rule.
12 Of 12 Democratic AGs, And The CNN Problem
The filing calls the lawsuit “a partisan enforcement action in a carefully chosen venue” and does the math: 12 of 12 Democratic attorneys general, 24 of 24 Democratic senators, 11 of 12 Democratic governors, 11 of 12 Democratic legislatures.
It says the states are using antitrust law “to exact maximum pain on a political enemy,” and it makes the case with their own words.
Bonta called the suit “a check on billionaires currying favor with the president” and said DOJ “just want[s] to help the Ellisons.”
Arizona’s Kris Mayes: “perhaps that something had to do with a mega-billionaire named Ellison.”
Washington’s Nick Brown called the approval “undoubtedly a pay-for-play system to curry favor with the president.”
New York’s Letitia James said owning CBS and CNN would let Paramount “control content at two major television news outlets.”
The filing’s answer is the one Bird used in her op-ed: “Surely competition authorities in the United Kingdom, the European Union, Canada, and China are not also following President Trump’s instructions.” When 68 regulators clear a deal, the outlier is the 12 states, not the DOJ.
Then there is CNN, which the attorneys general bring up constantly.
The actual lawsuit, per the filing, never claims the merger hurts news. It files CBS under “broadcast” and CNN under “basic cable,” two separate markets that never overlap.
“Defendant States have never explained what connection there is between their concerns about news coverage and any genuine antitrust harms,” it says.
What the lawsuit does claim is narrow: the combined company would control 27% of wide-release movies in theaters, plus too much of basic cable.
The filing’s section on what the delay is costing reads like our insider reporting since July. Warner Bros. needs Paramount’s sign-off on certain decisions under the deal while still competing with Paramount, and the result is “movies that are not made, risks that are not taken, and every decision hedged.”
Our insiders described “chaos” at Warner Bros. with projects on hold on July 16, and said this week that Paramount’s Tennessee move is already freezing deals. The Brave and the Bold went on hold last week.
Bonta canceled the court-ordered settlement talks on August 23, Ellison’s October 1 deadline is five weeks out, and the $7 million a day Paramount owes Warner Bros. starts the same day. The Supreme Court’s new term opens four days later, on October 5.
