Posobiec opened Friday’s show by calling the deal “one of the biggest stories of the day,” arguing that Netflix and HBO Max are now “trying to create a monopoly over streaming.” He said the combined platform has become “this massive behemoth taking up so much of the audience space and then squeezing out everyone else.”
The takeover lands at the same time Disney Plus continues to crater: “Netflix wants to come in and gobble it up,” Posobiec said.
But the key, he argued, is understanding why Netflix is pursuing dominance. “All the way back in 2018, Netflix signed a huge deal with who? Barack and Michelle Obama,” Posobiec explained. He noted that former Obama adviser Susan Rice was later added to the Netflix board.
“And then Susan Rice went back into the Biden administration. Then she came back to Netflix in 2023. And guess what Susan Rice did right after she came back to Netflix? Oh, that's right. She extended the Netflix deal with Barack Obama and Michelle Obama.”
According to Posobiec, that political nexus explains the company’s aggressive cultural shift in recent years. “Does anyone remember around 2018, why was it that Netflix just seemed to kind of go crazy? Where shows that were good all of a sudden became super woke. You needed LGBT themes in everything. You need racial themes in anything. Why did that happen?”
“All you have to do,” he continued, “is go back and look that it was 2018 was the year when Barack Obama and Michelle Obama signed a massive deal with Netflix.”
He pointed to Netflix’s flagship series Stranger Things as the clearest example of what changed. “If you go back to season one, it was just a great show about small town mystery set in the 1980s.” But he said viewers should look closely at what appears in the new season opener. After describing the clip on air, Posobiec didn’t mince words: “That was the video that I've been saying is I'm just going to call it out. It's pedo programming. It's what it is. It's pedo programming right there on Netflix in a show that is marketed to children.”
The scene in question is of a flashback of character Will Byers, portrayed by Noah Schnap. During his abduction into the show’s extra-dimensional realm known as the Upside Down, hiding from the creatures that inhabit space, Byers is discovered and knocked unconscious by the main antagonist, Vecna. Vecna then summons a tentacle-like appendage that is forced into Byers’ mouth, telling Byers they will do "beautiful things together." The pumping tendril is then seen to deliver an alien slug-like organisms into his body — a storyline that connects back to the end of Season 1, when a rescued Byers later coughs up one of the creatures.
WARNING: The following scene contains disturbing content.
The sequence shows the tentacle scene at length, with Vecna speaking to Byers while the act occurs. Byers can be heard gagging while the disturbing scene takes place. While a brief version of the moment was previously shown in Season 1, Season 5 presents a longer and more graphic depiction.
Netflix confirmed the acquisition Friday, announcing it had entered into a “definitive agreement” to purchase Warner Bros., HBO Max, and associated film and television properties.
The company said: “Today, Netflix, Inc. (the Company) and Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) announced they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Netflix will acquire Warner Bros., including its film and television studios, HBO Max and HBO.”
The deal values the transaction at $27.75 per share of WBD, with a total enterprise value “of approximately $82.7 billion.” Netflix said the purchase is expected to close after a planned separation of WBD’s Discovery Global division, now scheduled for Q3 2026.
Netflix leadership touted the deal as a cultural milestone. The co-CEO said: “With an incredible library of shows and movies—from timeless classics like Casablanca and Citizen Kane to modern favorites like Harry Potter and Friends—with our culture-defining titles like Stranger Things, KPop Demon Hunters and Squid Game, we’ll be able to do that even better. Together, we can give audiences more of what they love and help define the next century of storytelling.”
Netflix has also faced criticism in recent years for injecting gender ideology into children’s programming. Earlier this year, Elon Musk urged parents to cancel their Netflix subscriptions after animated shows began introducing transgender-identifying characters. The Warner Bros. acquisition will unfold alongside the planned spin-off of Discovery Global TV Networks, expected to finalize in 2026.
