From Shannon Pettypiece of Bloomberg:

President Donald Trump called Rupert Murdoch on Thursday and congratulated him ahead of a deal for Walt Disney Co. to buy some of the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox Inc., White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said. “I know that the president spoke with Rupert Murdoch earlier today, congratulated him on the deal,” Sanders said.

But then there’s the jobs angle

Ms. Sanders also inserted the White House into the little matter of mergers and layoffs. She said that Mr. Trump thinks that today’s deal could be “a great thing” for jobs.

There’s a problem. Here’s what Disney’s C.F.O., Christine McCarthy, told analysts this morning:

We expect to fully realize roughly $2 billion of cost synergies by 2021.

As Andrew reminded earlier this week, “synergies” is a code word for “layoffs.” And Disney executives said that the company expects to start realizing synergies within the first year after the deal closes.

It isn’t clear yet how many jobs would be cut if the transaction succeeds, but this would be a rare deal if it actually generated new positions on balance.

— Michael J. de la Merced

But what about Fox’s bid for Sky?

Fox has a bit of unfinished business before it can go forward with its deal with Disney.

It’s in the process of seeking regulatory approval in Britain to take full control of the British satellite television giant Sky in a deal worth about $15 billion. The two companies said on Thursday that Fox plans to proceed with the acquisition and hopes to complete the acquisition of the 61 percent of Sky that it doesn’t own by the end of June.

Sky would then be wholly owned by Disney, following the closing of the Fox deal.

The context: Mr. Murdoch helped found Sky in the early 1990s and has long sought total ownership of it. He last tried to do so five years ago, but was forced to back off amid the controversy over phone hacking by British tabloids, including the since-shuttered Murdoch-owned News of the World.