Rupert Murdoch, the media mogul who is executive chairman of 21st Century Fox, is one of President Trump’s closest allies and advisers. Fox News has been the president’s most reliable media champion. Mr. Murdoch and the president have each publicly described the other as “my good friend.”

Mr. Trump is also an avowed opponent of big media mergers. “It’s too much concentration of power,” he said of AT&T’s proposed acquisition of Time Warner. The government sued to block that deal on antitrust grounds.

So what level of antitrust scrutiny will the Walt Disney Company’s just-announced deal to purchase much of 21st Century Fox receive, and will the government try to block that mega-deal, too?

Because AT&T and Time Warner aren’t direct competitors, and the suit was such a break with Justice Department tradition, it gave rise to speculation that the real motive was to punish CNN, the Time Warner-owned Trump punching bag.