President Donald Trump has demanded that Netflix remove former US ambassador and national security advisor Susan Rice from its board, stepping up his criticism of the streaming giant as it seeks to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery amid antitrust scrutiny.
Rice, who served in senior roles in the Obama and Biden administrations, recently warned companies against aligning with Trump. Speaking on the “Stay Tuned with Preet Bharara” podcast published Thursday, she said corporations that “take a knee” to the president and skirt the law should expect consequences, predicting an “accountability agenda” if Democrats take back power.
“There is likely to be a swing in the other direction,” and these companies are “going to be caught with more than their pants down,” Rice said.” They’re going to be held accountable by those who come in opposition to Trump and win at the ballot box.”
Rice, a Democrat, has a long career in US foreign and domestic policy, working under Democratic presidents.
She served in the Clinton administration from 1993 to 2001, including roles at the National Security Council and as assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
Under Obama, Rice served as US ambassador to the UN, becoming the second-youngest person at 44 and the first Black woman to represent the US at the UN. She later served as head of the Domestic Policy Council under Biden.
She was born in Washington, D.C., and graduated from Stanford with a degree in history. She worked in management consulting for McKinsey and Company before entering government.
Rice has previously faced criticism from the right. In her 2019 memoir, “Tough Love: My Story of the Things Worth Fighting For,” she wrote that she was a frequent “villain” for conservative media.
After the 2012 killing of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, Republicans accused her of misleading the public in interviews discussing the attacks. She was later cleared by subsequent investigations.
She also faced scrutiny by Trump and his allies for “unmasking” senior Trump officials to understand why the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates was in New York in 2016.
Unmasking is when senior government officials ask to learn the identity of a US citizen whose name has been withheld in intelligence reports about communications, such as intercepted calls. In some situations, national security officials argue that knowing the person’s identity is necessary to interpret and assess the intelligence information.
As UN Ambassador, Rice supported US intervention against Muammar Gaddafi.
Rice has written op-eds supportive of the Biden administration and accusing Trump of undermining democracy. In a 2025 column in The New York Times, Rice accused members of Trump’s national security team of “reckless negligence” after they discussed sensitive national security matters on Signal.
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, the CEO of Business Insider’s parent company, is a Netflix board member.
