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In these divided times, it feels rare to find something most Americans can agree on.
But apparently most do agree on this.
Quote, the federal government is corrupt.
Yeah, according to a survey by the Nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, two-thirds of Americans agree with that statement.
Honestly, kind of surprised it's not higher.
Holding hands across the aisle in shared disgust of corruption.
Yeah, and given such low levels of trust in our government, you might think that our public servants, especially the leaders at the very top of our institutions, would do everything they can to avoid damaging that trust any further, to avoid even the appearance of corruption or conflicts of interest.
Well, in the example we're focusing on today, you would be wrong.
This is The Indicator from Planet Money.
I'm Adrian Ma.
And I'm Darian Woods.
Today on the show, we talk with ProPublica reporter Corey Johnson.
His recent investigation shows how leaders at the Federal Communications Commission received hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts from CBS or its parent company, Paramount Skydance.
That's a company that's trying to buy its rival Warner Brothers Discovery for $111 billion and is seeking FCC approval for the deal.
After the break, we'll talk about what's at stake, why FCC officials may have broken the law, and what it all means for this massive media merger.
This is Terry Gross.
When I was celebrating my 50th anniversary hosting Fresh Air, I asked my guest, Roastmaster General Jeff Ross, to roast me.
Terry Gross, a barely living legend.
Still at it.
Listen to Fresh Air on the NPR app or wherever you get podcasts.
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We're following the yuan, the naira, the krona, and more.
Every Wednesday this summer, we're taking you on a world tour to meet the people trying new solutions to old economic problems.
Planet Money Summer School.
Grab some friends, pack your bags, and don't forget the sunscreen.
Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
Once upon a time, the media company currently known as Paramount Skydance was actually two media companies, Paramount and Skydance.
But a couple of years ago, they struck a merger deal.
That's right.
And in July 2025, the FCC approved this deal in a two-to-one vote.
Later that year, ProPublica's Corey Johnson says the two Republican FCC commissioners who voted yes on that deal attended an event in D.C. called the Kennedy Center Honors.
Which is a swanky, very exclusive annual event that the Kennedy Center has been putting on for decades.
CBS broadcasts the event.
CBS, which is owned by Paramount Skydance.
And for the first time, a sitting president actually hosted the event.
The Trump Kennedy Center, I mean, Kennedy Center, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
But also in the audience were two FCC commissioners, Olivia Trustee and Chairman Brendan Carr.
And what we found initially through Olivia Trustee's financial disclosure record
Was that she had accepted over $12,000 in tickets as a gift from Paramount to attend.
Meanwhile, Chairman Brendan Carr and his wife had even better tickets.
Some of the best seats in the House, in fact.
A private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison.
The price for one seat in that skybox is $125,000.
And so, presumably, if...
He disclosed that he and his wife took those as gifts.
Presumably, that's a $250,000 gift.
And you say presumably because his financial disclosure hasn't been made public yet.
His financial disclosure has not been made public.
So it's a mystery right now.
Tickets worth $12,000, $250,000.
Yeah, a lot of money for a humble public servant if they had to actually buy that out of pocket.
And the thing is, when Corey dug into the public financial disclosures from the past decade, he found a pattern.
On at least seven prior occasions, Brendan Carr accepted tickets worth about $63,000 total.
Corey also found that it was common for both Republicans and Democrats to accept these freebies.
For instance, the lone Democratic member on the FCC, Ana Gomez, accepted tickets to the honors gala in 2023 and 2024.
You know, under federal rules, there is like this bedrock principle or requirement that no federal official...
Can receive anything of value from any entity that they regulate or is doing business with or is seeking to do business with the government.
People, when they violate this, they get fired.
Sometimes they even get criminally investigated.
Now, we need to pause from Corey for just a second for an explainer, because here's where things seem to get conflict of interest-y.
Once again, Paramount Skydance has business before the FCC, and like we said, it wants to buy its rival, Warner Bros.
Discovery, for $111 billion.
And in order to help finance the deal, the Ellison family, which owns Paramount, isn't putting up all that money themselves.
Instead, they're getting a big chunk of it from the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
As a result, if the deal goes through, foreign entities could own nearly 50% of the company.
Now, the U.S. Justice Department has already signed off on the merger, dismissing antitrust concerns.
But the major increase in foreign ownership, now that presents Paramount with another problem.
That's because normally U.S. broadcasters can't be more than 25 percent foreign-owned, unless the FCC makes an exception.
The rationale here is that foreign ownership of major U.S. media companies could pose a national security risk.
And in Paramount's case, it actually owns 28 local TV stations that hold licenses granted by the FCC.
Of course, Paramount has asked the FCC to waive the 25% cap.
And now you can see the problem.
FCC's officials are in charge of deciding the fate of a massive deal involving a company they've accepted massive gifts from.
Seems to be a clear conflict of interest.
Turning back to Corey Johnson, he puts it this way.
And so if you're paramount, in order to get $110 billion approved, spending $250,000 on a skybox seat is chump change.
So you found, kind of hiding in plain sight, what seems to be a violation of federal ethics rules, a conflict of interests.
What have they said in response to this report?
What has the FCC said?
FCC has said, in essence, that there's really nothing to see here.
But what we learned by looking at the law and then talking to four really credible ethics attorneys, almost all of these experts, they were outraged.
There is a requirement in the rules that if an ethics official greenlights one of these kind of forbidden type events, that they document it and document their reasoning for doing so.
Well, we asked for that documentation.
Many, many times for the FCC to provide it.
And we're still waiting.
Now, let's be clear here.
When we say this behavior appears to violate federal ethics laws, we're not saying the behavior is necessarily criminal.
We are saying the federal government has rules regarding what employees can and can't do.
Accepting freebies worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from a company you're regulating is supposed to be one of those can't-dos.
These rules are aimed at preventing corruption or even the appearance of corruption.
And what's at stake here, at least for the commission, is nothing less than the public's trust in government.
Whatever's left of it anyway.
Yeah, you got that one third of Americans.
So what happens now?
Well, according to federal rules, employees who receive an improper gift should return it or pay for it.
They might face disciplinary action and they might recuse themselves from official actions involving the gifter.
Now, whether any of this is likely to happen is a good question because Brendan Carr's boss, after all, is President Trump, and President Trump is a friend of the Ellison family.
And yet, all this doesn't necessarily mean that this deal is a done deal.
On Monday, a federal judge put the deal on pause for 14 days.
And that was for a separate reason.
It was after a dozen state attorneys general sued, arguing the deal violates an anti-monopoly law called the Clayton Act.
So I guess we'll just have to stay tuned, Darian.
We reached out to the FCC and in a statement, spokesperson Adam Jackman said FCC ethics officials have consistently cleared Democrat and Republican officials to attend this event over many years during the Obama, Biden and Trump administrations.
Paramount Skydance did not respond to our request for comment.
By the way, Paramount and Warner Brothers Discovery are financial supporters of NPR.
This episode was produced by Corey Bridges with engineering by Kweisi Lee.
It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez.
Kagan Cannon is our editor and the indicators of production of NPR.
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