CNN contributor Kara Swisher says she has asked her agent to end her contract with the network months early, declaring she refuses to work under the incoming Ellison ownership, a move that follows a growing exodus of left-leaning talent.
Swisher made the announcement on the Tuesday episode of her "Pivot" podcast, just days after Paramount reached a settlement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta that cleared the way for its merger with Warner Bros. Discovery, CNN's parent company. The podcaster did not hold back about the network's incoming bosses, telling co-host Scott Galloway she wants out as fast as possible.
Her contract runs through December 31, but Swisher made clear she has no interest in waiting it out under new management. She had first threatened to leave back in June, calling David Ellison and his father Larry Ellison "incompetent." Tuesday's remarks amounted to a follow-through on that threat, with added profanity.
"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*** these guys! I don't want to work for them. I just don't."
She added that she has "a lot of regard for the executives there now" but sees no path forward once the Ellisons take the reins. Galloway, her co-host, offered a blunt prediction: CNN might not put up a fight to keep her.
"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.'"
Galloway's quip landed as more observation than joke. Swisher is a podcast host and media commentator, not a ratings anchor. Her departure is unlikely to leave a hole in CNN's prime-time lineup.
Swisher's walkout follows a pattern. Anderson Cooper, Scott Pelley, Sharyn Alfonsi, and John Dickerson have all departed CNN or CBS ahead of the ownership change, as Breitbart noted. The exodus has a common thread: left-leaning on-air talent choosing to leave rather than work under an ownership group with ties to President Trump and a stated interest in editorial balance.
David Ellison, the incoming Paramount CEO, has already made moves at CBS News that rattled the old guard. He installed Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief, and Weiss has reportedly shaken up the network under what the New York Post described as "an Ellison mandate to bring balance to the outlet." Whether Weiss will play a similar role at CNN remains unclear, but left-leaning staffers are already uneasy.
That unease extends well beyond the on-air talent. An unnamed television executive predicted sweeping cuts once the merger is complete.
"Bloodbath coming, including at CNN. That's the next big step, slashing and burning."
The fear of layoffs is real. CNN staffers have been openly panicking about their futures since the settlement dropped, and the network's workforce knows that mergers of this scale almost always mean consolidation, and consolidation means pink slips.
Swisher and Galloway may disagree on the significance of her departure, but they found common ground on the settlement itself. Bonta, California's attorney general, had filed suit to block the Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery merger. He dropped the case after Paramount agreed to a minimum number of annual film releases, among other unspecified terms.
Galloway dismissed the settlement as regulatory theater, arguing the antitrust case never had legal merit. Leadership shake-ups and internal power struggles have become a recurring theme across American institutions, much like the factional fights now playing out inside the Democratic caucus in Congress.
"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."
He went further, accusing Bonta of political calculation rather than genuine enforcement.
"This is total weak sauce. This is Rob Bonta deciding he wants to run for governor and giving in to populist bulls***. I don't like the concentration of media, but the bottom line is when you do the math, and you look at antitrust law, there was no legal leg to stand on here."
Galloway noted that eleven other state attorneys general had joined Bonta's case. The settlement effectively ended the legal challenge for all of them. The terms Paramount agreed to, a film-release minimum and unspecified additional steps, look more like face-saving measures for the regulators than meaningful structural conditions on the deal.
Swisher's objections are not new. She first vowed to leave CNN in June 2026, saying she would not work for "the Ellisons and their minions." At a Syracuse University event, she went further, telling the audience she considered the incoming owners unfit for the job.
"I'm not working for you hacks. I'm just not doing it. And it's just not worth it to me," Swisher said at the time. She added: "I don't think they'll be good owners. I don't. I think they've already shown several times...that they have no interest in journalism."
Paramount representatives reportedly contacted Swisher in an attempt to convince her to stay. She was unmoved. On Tuesday, she called the Ellisons "terrible media owners", upgrading from "incompetent" three months earlier.
Larry Ellison, the billionaire Oracle co-founder and David Ellison's father, provided financial backing for the merger. He is widely described as a close ally of President Trump. That connection is part of what drives the anxiety inside CNN's newsroom, a workforce that has spent years positioning itself as adversarial to the Trump administration now faces ownership with direct ties to the White House.
The dynamic is not unlike the pattern playing out across other institutions where figures once considered allies face backlash from their own side over perceived ideological drift, a tension that has surfaced even among conservatives unhappy with recent Supreme Court decisions.
Weiss's overhaul at CBS News offers the closest preview. She arrived with a mandate to bring editorial balance, and the results have rattled a newsroom accustomed to a particular point of view. Whether Ellison will install a similar figure at CNN, restructure the editorial leadership, or simply let attrition do the work is unknown. Swisher's voluntary exit, and the departures of Cooper and others, may accomplish part of the job before any directive is issued.
Swisher told Galloway she has plenty to keep her busy. "I got too much to do with you, Scott Galloway," she said, a reference to their "Pivot" podcast, which will presumably continue without the CNN affiliation.
The Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery merger, valued at $111 billion, is now on track to close. The settlement with Bonta removed the last major legal obstacle. Once it does, David Ellison will begin his tenure overseeing CNN, and the network's remaining staff will find out whether the unnamed TV executive's prediction of a "bloodbath" was hyperbole or a preview.
When a contributor announces her departure with an expletive and the network's likely response is a shrug, the real story is not who is leaving. It is how little the old guard's objections matter to the people signing the checks.
