CNN founder Ted Turner recently died, prompting President Donald Trump to reflect on what the network had become since Turner sold it decades ago. Trump argued on Truth Social that Turner grew disillusioned with CNN’s increasingly ideological direction, and the CNN founder himself said much the same before his death.

Now, as CNN’s parent company prepares to be acquired by the pro-Trump Ellison family’s Paramount-Skydance empire, the political and media establishment is panicking over the possibility that the network could finally move back toward the middle.