President Trump called on Netflix to fire former United Nations Ambassador Susan Rice from its board of directors on Saturday, after Rice spent the week warning corporations, law firms, and universities that cooperating with the Trump administration would carry consequences once Democrats return to power.
Trump posted on Truth Social with characteristic directness:
"Netflix should fire racist, Trump Deranged Susan Rice, IMMEDIATELY, or pay the consequences. She's got no talent or skills – Purely a political hack! HER POWER IS GONE, AND WILL NEVER BE BACK. How much is she being paid, and for what???"
The Hill reported that the post came after Rice appeared on a podcast with former U.S. attorney Preet Bharara this week and laid out what amounted to a threat matrix for any institution that dares work with the current administration.
Rice didn't dance around her message. She argued that entities choosing to "take a knee" to Trump were making a catastrophic miscalculation, one she framed in explicitly political terms:
"It's not going to end well for them, for those that decided that it was, you know, that they would act in their perceived, very narrow self-interest, which I would underscore is very short-term self-interest."
She went further, predicting a political reversal and promising that those who cooperated with the administration would face retribution at the hands of the next Democratic majority:
"I think they're now starting to realize, 'Wait a minute, you know, this is not popular. Trump is not popular.' What he is doing, whether on the economy and affordability or on immigration, now, is not popular, and that there is likely to be a swing in the other direction, and they are going to be caught with more than their pants down. They're going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box."
Rice also suggested that entities should "preserve their documents" and be "ready for subpoenas." That's not political analysis. That's a promise of investigation. From a Netflix board member, no less.
What makes Rice's comments so striking isn't the sentiment. Everyone understands that political parties pursue agendas when they hold power.
What's remarkable is the naked admission that Democrats intend to use government as a weapon against private institutions whose only crime was compliance with a sitting president.
Think about what she's actually saying. A company that follows the law, cooperates with the administration in power, and acts in its shareholders' interests should expect subpoenas, investigations, and political retribution from a future Democratic government. Not because they broke a law. Because they didn't resist.
This is the same party that spent four years accusing Trump of "weaponizing" the government. Rice sat in the Obama White House. She knows how federal power works from the inside. And here she is, on a podcast, openly blueprinting the very thing her party claims to oppose.
Conservative influencer and close Trump ally Laura Loomer seized on the contradiction:
"Rice is basically openly saying that Democrats will go after anyone and everyone who supported President Trump, embracing weaponized lawfare against potentially millions of Americans."
Loomer also pressed Netflix directly, asking whether the company stands by a board member "threatening half of the country with weaponized government and political retribution for choosing who they wanted to vote for as President."
A spokesperson for Netflix did not immediately return a request for comment from The Hill.
Rice's comments don't exist in isolation. They landed in the same week that a group of eight Senate Democrats sent a letter on Thursday to Paramount Chairman and CEO David Ellison demanding that the company preserve records related to its hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery.
Netflix has already reached a $72 billion deal to acquire WBD's movie and television studio.
The timing is difficult to read as coincidental. Rice warns companies to preserve documents and brace for subpoenas.
Days later, Senate Democrats demand document preservation from a major media company in the middle of a deal. The "accountability agenda" Rice described isn't theoretical. It's operational.
Loomer called on Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to "kill" the merger, connecting the dots between Rice's position on the Netflix board and the broader consolidation fight in media.
Netflix finds itself in an uncomfortable position, though one entirely of its own making. Susan Rice is not just a former government official collecting a board stipend.
She is an active political combatant issuing public threats against companies that cooperate with the duly elected president of the United States, while sitting on the board of a company in the middle of a $72 billion acquisition that requires regulatory approval.
There's a term for using a corporate perch to advance a political intimidation campaign. It isn't "governance."
The broader pattern here deserves attention. The Democratic Party increasingly treats cooperation with Republican administrations as a form of collaboration to be punished. Not illegal conduct. Not ethical violations.
Simple compliance with the party in power. Universities that engage with federal policy, law firms that represent administration interests, corporations that follow regulatory guidance: all of them, in Rice's telling, should expect to be hauled before congressional committees the moment the political winds shift.
This is not how a constitutional republic is supposed to function. Peaceful transfer of power means the incoming party governs. It does not mean the outgoing party maintains a blacklist.
Netflix's silence is itself an answer, at least for now. Every day Rice remains on that board after publicly threatening American institutions with political retaliation is a day Netflix endorses the message.
The company will eventually have to decide whether a former Obama administration official's vendetta is worth the regulatory and reputational exposure, particularly with a $72 billion deal on the table. Rice told America exactly what Democrats plan to do with power. The only question is whether anyone was listening.