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Zaz’s Bonus Math & Trump’s Banking Crisis

News and notes on the Downtown Cip table chatter: Zaz’s Paramount false flag and Trump’s increasingly cumbersome penalty financing solutions.

david zaslav
There was never any real chance that David Zaslav’s imperiled Warner Bros. Discovery was going to swallow up Shari Redstone’s incredible shrinking Paramount Global. Photo: Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images for The New York Times
William D. Cohan
March 3, 2024

Well, dear reader, the world found out this week what I’ve been faithfully telling you all along—there was never any real chance that David Zaslav’s imperiled Warner Bros. Discovery was going to swallow up Shari Redstone’s incredible shrinking Paramount Global. There was no way—as I wrote last December, the moment word leaked that Zaz had lunch with Paramount Global C.E.O. Bob Bakish—that the two sides were going to strike a deal.