With friends like Iowa Attorney General  Brenna Bird, does Paramount and David Ellison really need enemies?

In an op-ed penned for the conservative Daily Wire Tuesday, the Hawkeye State ally of Donald Trump is threatening to take California to the Supreme Court. Declaring that “California is once again trying to be the country’s regulator,” Bird wants to stop the antitrust lawsuit from the Golden State, New York and 10 other states against Paramount’s $111 billion purchase of Warner Brothers Discovery.

“Just like California should keep its hands off America’s bacon, California needs to understand that it doesn’t get to decide what Americans can choose to watch or stream,” the reelection seeking Bird states of the state and its AG Rob Bonta.

“If California believes a transaction that 68 regulators approved is nevertheless illegal, it is free to make that argument,” she notes, lamenting the $7 million a day ticking fee and more Paramount will have to start paying WBD shareholders starting October 1. “But it should make it in the one court with the authority to bind all of us, and it should make it now, before the bill for the delay comes due,” Bird claps, leaving out any reference to the Empire State’s Letitia James and other AG.

Yet, for all her rallying to the ParaBros cause, as well as some variations on what Bonta and gang are actually alleging in the March 2, 2027 trial starting case before a federal judge in Oakland, Bird doesn’t seem to have actually filed anything with SCOTUS.

It also seems hard to see how even if Iowa did take California to the conservative majority Supreme Court, how they could get a hearing before next spring or even October, with the John Roberts-led high court not back in session until October 5.

However, let’s sidestep Bird getting a perch on SCOTUS’ fast tracked interim relief docket (AKA the emergency docket or shadow docket) for a second, and look at a possible route under the provisions of Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution. Even if the case fell within the “original jurisdiction” criteria and passed muster with the Justices, any ruling would likely still be drawn out — likely beyond the March 2027 trial already on the calendar. In the rare case SCOTUS picks up such a state to state battle, it would generally appoint a “special master’ to review the matter before getting directly on it.

All of which, like Paramount CEO Ellison accused Bonta in an August 4 NYT op-ed, makes Bird’s flag planter reek of politics.

Bird, who filed a brief in 2024 support of the former Apprentice host’s ultimately successful bid to gain significant immunity from prosecution for acts taken while POTUS, sidesteps most of the meat of the actual antitrust suit the 12 states and the WGA are pursuing. A suit that Bonta, in an August 10 guest column for Deadline, paints as “a straight up antitrust enforcement case. One that is very cut and dry.” Instead, Bird, while giving the DOJ the benefit of the doubt, moves to blast Bonta and colleagues as “more hostile to this pro-competition merger than Europe and China.”

The ‘To Save American Movies, I’m Taking California To The Supreme Court’ entitled piece in the Ben Shapiro-founded outlet insists a ParaBros combo is good for high streaming subscription paying Iowans, competition and the movie and TV businesses. “The merger could create a company to compete: an estimated $6 billion in savings to reinvest, and a public commitment to release at least 30 movies in theaters every year. More movies mean more entertainment — and more competition means lower prices,” Bird says.

There is no mention by Bird of the $80 billion debt load a ParaBros will carry, the ongoing blame game settlement talks (or lack thereof) skirmish, nor the $1.88 billion bond Paramount desires to offset the “extraordinary losses” the court challenge poses.

Bird also makes no mention of possible layoffs or other cuts from a Paramount and WBD melding. Cuts that every such M&A deal has seen. Cuts that the likes of the WGA SAG-AFTRA and theTeamsters warn of. Cut that reports in both late June and last week to the LA County Board of Supervisors warned could see thousands pink slipped, and cost the region billions in wage and hundreds of millions in tax revenue.

Touting a Hollywood that few who live here may recognize, the Iowa AG chooses echoes the findings of earlier this year from Trump’s DOJ approving the merger. To that, right now, she says “more movies are being made, and more workers are being hired.”

While seemingly concurrently stressing that a joint “Paramount+ and HBO Max together are smaller than Netflix, smaller than Disney and smaller than Amazon,” Bird also throws out there that “a successful Paramount-Warner Bros. merger would change that.” Later in the op-ed, the long time pol says: “That is the opposite of a monopoly problem.”

Singing the tunes of the growing MAGA chorus that seeks to turn Bonta into the new Nancy Pelosi punching bag, Bird asserts “California is just dreaming up something radical” to go to war with Trump and his admitted “good friends” David Ellison and his Oracle founding father Larry Ellison.

“California argues that the Department of Justice waved this through as a political favor to Paramount’s owners,” Bird wrote Tuesday in a smudging of what is actually in the July 13 filing by the colalition of blue states. Then someone should explain how the Department managed to get approval in China, Europe, Canada, and the other 60-plus jurisdictions. When regulators in 68 jurisdictions with different laws, different politics, and no stake whatsoever in American elections all reach the same conclusion, the outlier is not the consensus.”

Again, no filing seems to have occurred today so far at the Supreme Court from Iowa or Bird. Rob Bonta and Brenna Bird’s office do share the fact that neither of them responded to Deadline’s request for comment on the Iowa AG’s threat.

Jelly Roll weighed in on the strong reaction to his Monday monologue on “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” saying he couldn’t believe his jabs at Trump caused more trouble in late night than Rosie O’Donnell.

“I did a couple of jokes like that last night, in case y’all didn’t hear about it,” the country singer noted during Tuesday’s monologue after making a dig at the White House’s ballroom project. “And it’s because I’m hosting a damn late night show. That’s where you talk about the news and you make jokes.”

“But I guess apparently because I did it, it really messed with people’s heads. This was actually a headline, y’all,” Jelly Roll said, before referencing TheWrap’s Monday story, titled, “Jelly Roll Stuns ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ Audience With Multiple Jabs at Trump: ‘Didn’t See This Coming.’“

Jelly Roll confessed he was pretty surprised by the reaction, noting, “I have to say, as a former felon, drug dealer who has lost 300 lb., has tattoos all over his face and won three Grammys, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done to stun people.”

Though, he was particularly stunned to see that his monologue caused “more trouble” than Rosie O’Donnell’s guest hosting stint, given she’s Trump’s longtime nemesis.

“What a turn of events. Who would have guessed I’d get in more trouble with the president than Rosie O’Donnell?” he joked. “I love you, Rosie. Thanks for having my back today, baby.”

As Jelly Roll went on, he acknowledged that some viewers felt he didn’t “treat the president with reverence and dignity.”

“But I want to remind y’all that I go by the name Jelly Roll,” he said. “I don’t even treat myself with reverence and dignity. One day I looked in the mirror and said, ‘You, my friend, are a pastry.’”

“Frankly, I think most people were just surprised that I had any opinions at all,” he continued. “They see a guy that looks like me and assume the only opinion I have is whether I prefer my meth crystal or classic.”

Jelly Roll stood by his jokes, however, noting that a U.S. president should be able “to handle a few” jabs.

“They should also be able to handle gas prices, healthcare and the occasional international conflict, but beggars can’t be choosers,” he ripped. “Look y’all, I get it that some people are mad at me for goofing on Trump, but if you wanted me to make jokes about Kamala Harris, you should have voted for her.”

Before moving on to his next topic, Jelly Roll issued a statement to those threatening a boycott of his music.

“I just want to say with conviction, go right ahead ’cause I’m going to keep speaking my truth or my name isn’t Post Malone,” the singer, who often gets mistaken for the “Circles” rapper, said.

Watch Jelly Roll’s full monologue above.

“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.

Actress Golda Rosheuvel opened up about a less-than-pleasant fan encounter she faced while on vacation following the global success of “Bridgerton,” calling the experience “really weird and scary.”

During her Tuesday appearance on Jesse Tyler Ferguson’s “Dinner’s on Me” podcast, Rosheuvel, reflected on the anxiety and loss of anonymity that came with her “Bridgerton” fame.

“It is helpful that we were together before it all went crazy,” Rosheuvel, who plays Queen Charlotte on Netflix’s romance drama, said of her wife, Shireen Mula. “Sometimes she still holds on to the old days, which can be a little difficult.”

Rosheuvel offered up their newfound travel expenses as an example, noting, “I don’t want to sound like a wanker, but it’s things like having to travel in a different seat than we used to. Do you know what I mean? And flying to Europe for £400 now rather than £50.”

As Rosheuvel went on, she explained that this wasn’t due to wanting a more luxurious travel experience, but out of a need for privacy.

“Sadly, sometimes I have anxiety about traveling, about people looking at me, because they do,” she said. “Being in the public eye now, my senses, I will know when somebody over there a mile away goes, [gasps]. And I know that they’ve recognized me.”

Per Rosheuvel, there have been “things that have happened” since rising to fame with “Bridgerton,” sharing that they “have not been pleasant.”

“We were chased in Barcelona by a few girls,” she recalled. “And that was really weird and scary and, you know, we were on holiday. It was just bizarre.”

Rosheuvel then expressed gratitude for getting “paid enough to be able to keep ourselves safe.”

Ferguson, who starred on 11 seasons of ABC’s “Modern Family,” related to Rosheuvel’s safety concerns, noting he experienced something similar early on in the comedy’s success.

“The first year of ‘Modern Family,’ for me, because I wasn’t someone who was well known and we all were being paid different prices because, you know, certain people were very famous and certain people were not. I was one of the people who was not,” he noted. “I wasn’t getting paid as much as other actors, but yet we were all on this thing together that was this juggernaut that people were recognizing us from. And I found … I wasn’t always able to afford what I needed to keep myself safe in that first year.”

Ferguson noted that when renegotiations came around, he made sure to advocate for himself, adding, “I was like, “No, I deserve this because what the job is now is requiring different things from me and I need to be able to support that.’”

Watch Ferguson and Rosheuvel’s conversation above.