Kara Swisher is looking for the CNN exit after California Attorney General Rob Bonta agreed to drop his lawsuit blocking Paramount’s merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, as reported [1] by Fox News.
The podcaster and CNN contributor made her disgust plain Tuesday while declaring that she wants out as soon as possible.
“F**k these guys!” Swisher said during the Tuesday episode of her “Pivot” podcast.
Her outburst came one day after Bonta agreed to abandon the suit challenging the merger involving CNN’s parent company.
As part of the settlement, Paramount agreed to a minimum number of annual film releases and other steps.
Swisher turned her attention to the prospect of Paramount CEO David Ellison beginning his reign at CNN, asking, “It’s only a few months, right?”
Swisher said she had considered whether she could continue working with CNN through some form of licensing arrangement.
That possibility apparently did not survive her assessment of the incoming ownership.
“I’m just — I just can’t. I just, I thought like I was trying to figure out ways I could work with them in some like licensing way. But then I thought, f**k these guys! I don’t want to work for them. I just don’t,” Swisher said.
Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway discussed CNN and the Ellison’s on two podcasts yesterday in this double feature clip
Kara: I asked my agent to get me out of my CNN contract. I was trying to figure out ways I could work with them, but then I thought F*^K these guys.
Scott: It’s… https://t.co/L8tIeUVw61 [2] pic.twitter.com/ZqLqHafMry [3]
— Clipping Wings (@ClippingWings) September 23, 2026 [4]
She then addressed Scott Galloway, her contributor on the popular podcast, and suggested she had plenty of other work. “I got too much to do with you, Scott Galloway,” she told him.
Galloway responded with a teasing prediction about how CNN might receive her request. “Kara, let me give you a little insight scoop here,” he began.
“I think there’s a decent likelihood that when you show up to whoever it is you show up to at CNN and say, I want out of my contract, they jump up and say, ‘Congratulations, no problem.’”
His rejoinder added another jab to Swisher’s highly public exit threat.
Swisher had already vowed in June that she would leave CNN if the Paramount and Warner Bros. Discovery merger proceeded.
At that time, she called David Ellison and his father, billionaire Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, “incompetent.”
Larry Ellison, described as a close ally of President Trump, provided financial backing for the merger. Swisher renewed her criticism of both Ellisons on Tuesday, saying, “I think they are terrible media owners.”
Still, Swisher distinguished the current leadership from the prospective owners.
She said she has “a lot of regard for the executives there now,” even as she made clear that she does not want to remain under the Ellisons.
Her tirade arrived as fears have grown inside CNN that Paramount will carry out sweeping layoffs once the merger is completed, according to The Post.
One television executive offered a particularly grim assessment of what could be ahead.
“Bloodbath coming, including at CNN,” the executive said. “That’s the next big step — slashing and burning.”
Left-leaning employees at CNN are also wary of CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss.
She has shaken up the Tiffany Network under an Ellison mandate to bring balance to the outlet, although her possible role at CNN remains uncertain.
Galloway also blasted the case brought by Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general, dismissing it as “sheer regulatory theater.”
He mocked the contrast between the regulators’ initial warnings and the terms on which the dispute was ultimately settled.
“Regulators started out saying this is Godzilla, it’s an existential threat to humanity and they settled by saying, we’ll make more movies about Godzilla,” Galloway said.
He then called the outcome “total weak sauce” and accused Bonta of embracing “populist bulls**t” while seeking to run for governor.
Galloway said he does not like media concentration, but argued that the case lacked a sound foundation under antitrust law.
“The bottom line is when you do the math, and you look at antitrust law, there was no legal leg to stand on here,” he said.