Opinion Today: Appease Trump to save Hollywood?
Here’s what we’re focusing on.
Opinion Today
December 12, 2025
An illustration depicts David Ellison’s face superimposed over a red outline and a merger document. A thin red box to the immediate left features a snapshot that includes the CNN logo; then another vertical box to its left is filled by a partial photo of Donald Trump’s face with a stern expression.
Illustration by Celina Pereira

Notable

David Ellison is playing a dangerous game. “Mr. Trump always wants his pound of flesh, and any company run by Mr. Ellison would inevitably be prone to influence from the White House, which has pressed media executives to fire people Mr. Trump doesn’t like and promote those he does.”

— Steven Zeitchik, the senior editor of technology and politics at “The Hollywood Reporter”

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Life and death in India’s air apocalypse. “I recently asked a motorbike taxi driver how he survives. His secret? Drinking a mix of local herbs and jaggery to detox his lungs. When reality is unbearable, delusion becomes the only shelter some people can afford.”

— Anurag Minus Verma, an Indian podcaster

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Trump is degrading the justice system. Democrats are helping. “The way to combat a corrupt deal is to repudiate it — loudly, constantly and on a bipartisan basis — by forcefully advocating the rule of law.”

— J.P. Cooney and Molly Gaston, partners in the law firm Gaston & Cooney PLLC

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Spotlight: A Special Series

Photo illustration by Joan Wong

America’s Military Culture Is Broken. They Want to Fix It.

The benefits of serving have never been more appealing, but the Pentagon needs a better approach to recruiting new talent.

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ICYMI

The ‘A-plus, A-plus, A-plus, A-plus, A-plus, economy’ is bad for Trump. “What’s crucial to understand about Mr. Trump’s poor approval numbers is that unlike during his last time in the White House, people now disapprove of him because of the economy, not in spite of it.”

— Kristen Soltis Anderson, a contributing Opinion writer

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The Opinions

Thomas L. Friedman Says We’re in a New Epoch. David Brooks Has Questions.

Two columnists debate this strange moment.

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32 MIN LISTEN

More in Opinion

A photograph of a white picket fence in front of an American flag hanging off a house that’s mostly obscured by large green bushes.

Thomas L. Friedman

Trump Isn’t Interested in Fighting a New Cold War. He Wants a New Civilizational War.

Trump is not interested in refighting the Cold War. He is, in my view, interested in fighting the civilizational war over what is the American “home.”

By Thomas L. Friedman

In Your Words

Re: “America Can’t Make What the Military Needs

Ship building is just another sector of our industrial base that is being destroyed by companies’ obsession with shareholder profits rather than the national interest. Our country’s capability to produce a strong military is in a death spiral because of greed.— A comment posted by Mac from Arlington

Read more comments on the story here and check out our Letters to the Editor.

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