Wither Realignment?

Key Takeaways

Thanks uh Luther for the kind introduction and uh for all the other people in the audience, we're going to try and make this actually a little bit entertaining, shall we? And actually maybe make some news or at least very much get into it. And so uh since we don't have a lot of time, Mike, I thought I would start with you uh basically on the topic that has dominated Washington conversation on antitrust now for years, whether this whole populous left and right thing is real. And so considering now that we're in the first few days of the first few months of the Trump administration, uh, as Luther mentioned, the firing of some of those FTC commissioners, what can you assess right now of the reality of some sort of horseshoe theory of antirust, the populist left and right whenever whenever it comes to protecting small business and going after big tech, or do you think that this is a issue that can be dominated totally by one party where success will happen? What do you think? I really think there's a bipartisan coalition on antirust and you're seeing the uh populist left and populist right come together on this. I started the internet accountability project five years ago and I was the first uh we were the first group on the right to take on a big tech. Oh, Rachel Board's here. Hello. Uh she helped me start that. I didn't even see her there. But um we we started this and when when Rachel and I were out there, we were mocked and ridiculed because we took on Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple from the right. Um Ra Rachel was kind of the guinea pig. We'd throw out there and do the media and she would just get torched. Um but she she's tough as hell, of course. And so we just kept going at it. They they laughed at us 5 years ago. And now we have uh the Trump and Biden administration bringing antirust lawsuits against uh the trillion dollar big tech monopolists like Google on search and on their advertising online advertising monopoly and we're winning these lawsuits. Uh Doha worked for Jonathan Caner. I think we shocked Jonathan Caner and Lena Khan, especially when Crazy Mike Davis endorsed their nominations. Uh they're like, "What the hell is going on here? This uh what what's the what's the move?" But no, it's there's very much a bipartisan consensus and it's growing. Uh you know, the the Republicans are finally waking up. I think what was the gateway drug for Republicans, for conservatives, was the censor censorship, right? I think Republicans are generally of the mindset that big is not bad. Um, you know, I there are a lot of Republicans. There's there there is never an antitrust violation in the hundred years of the antitrust laws. I think when we saw these big trillion dollar big tech platforms have gatekeeping power over information and commerce and they were able to use that gatekeeping power to censor, silence, deplatform and cancel conservatives and others with whom they disagree. I think that's when Republicans started to wake up. Yeah, I I agree with that. Doa, what what's your assessment now having been through, you know, the first couple of months of the Trump administration? And do you think that the left and the right can share the same goals in break up of big tech even if we're getting there in different ways? Yeah. So, I mean, it's not surprising. I agree totally with Mike that there is um something going on on the left and on the right. And I can say that um having spent 10 years at the Justice Department, including as counsel to Donald Trump's first head of the antitrust division, Min Delerim, and then as Jonathan Caner's principal deputy before ultimately leading the place myself, um I think this is real. Um I think there is a durable concern and um as Mike noted, I think our friends on the right come to this from concern about um deplatforming, censorship, and so forth. And I think our friends on the left come to this um largely uh you know from events that have roots in the financial crisis. And I do think that there was a passing of the torch so to speak from Trump one to the Biden administration right they filed um the Google search uh antitrust monopolization case. Um again I was there for the tech review. I remember how groundbreaking that was. Then we tried it and then we filed cases against Apple and another case against Google. um seeking breakups of those monopolies but also other kinds of monopolies that affect the tech ecosystem. You know, I I think that um we are watching uh what's happening in the first months of the Trump administration. Um and what I see is um some factionalism on the right that looks mighty familiar for those of us who um experienced um you know some similar elements on the left, right? Like there are um two parties. It's the duopoly of our time and it brings together um different coalitions and so we saw folks who were very um comfortable with the neoliberal orthodoxy that had set uh in place for maybe 50 years or so in Washington. Um and we did things a little bit differently at the DOJ and again I see this on the right as well. I think there are um wonderful antitrust agency heads for example who see the problem right like they see the issue of oligarchy of entrenched corporate power not just in big tech but in um pharmaceuticals and agriculture right and other things that really matter for the participation of the American people and our market economy um but there are also um some folks who um maybe don't want government at all have deep concerns about the administrative state and again I I see this having come from an administration that had some, you know, similar factions, right? Um or a similar form of factionalism. Yeah, totally makes sense. Mike, uh let's talk about the firing of these FTC commissioners. Uh do you think that this is like a Trump admin play to consolidate power to more furtherly aggreg, you know, aggressive push against big tech? Is it what Doha's alluding to, which is more of a big business, Wall Street Journal style uh thing to plate them? How do you view that action? And how do you think that that's going to uh work in terms of some sort of bipartisan push in order to reign in big tech? Well, I had a big role in helping Andrew Ferguson get selected by President Trump to be the FTC chair and Gail Slater to be the uh assistant attorney general for the antitrust division and Mark Meadow uh for the FTC commissioner. I had no role in the firings and I didn't know they were coming. I think it was uh I don't know what the I don't know what the play was. I I think it was frankly a stupid move and it should not have happened. Interesting. Do what do you think? What do you think that what what kind of message does that send to people like you? You know, I'm I'm a private citizen now, right? Um and I I was very So, speak your mind. Yeah. I um was excited to see what the Trump administration would do on issues of corporate power that matter like tech, like agriculture, etc. And I think that the firings, you know, setting aside what anyone might think about the Supreme Court president, Humphrey's executive, um I think there are plurality of views out there. Um even if you wanted to overturn Supreme Court president for almost a hundred years that has said, you know, there's only four cause removal. Um, it makes it harder to take on, I think, the very good targets that the the president himself identified when he nominated folks like Mark and Gail and Andrew um to their very important roles. And so, like we're seeing that already. Just yesterday, the FTC's general counsel um advised that there should be an administrative stay in the PBM case. Right. Again, conservatives are um aligned with folks on the left in terms of um concern over uh PBMs that make life-saving medicines more expensive for people across the country. And so, again, this is that that dissonance. And again, I I say this having some sympathy because we've experienced versions of this from the left. Yeah, I think Mike, that's one I want to drill into here for the audience is these tensions in the coalition which are difficult to explain if you're just looking at it from the outside. So you've also been, you know, I would say somebody who's endorsed like some aggressive movement by the Trump administration, certainly in ends that, you know, you think uh are justifiable, but with that type of let's say pugnacious uh fighting attitude, which is fine uh whenever you're doing that, how do you think that that will then affect if the Trump administration takes that and you know, as you said, perhaps pursues a stupid move? Will it destroy like future cooperation? So, as somebody who's navigating these waters of supporting the administration, also trying to preserve some sort of bipartisan consensus, how do you think that that's going to play out? Uh, I don't. So, whoever advised the president to fire these FTC commissioners may have a different motive. Maybe they're trying to destroy this bipartisan effort to hold big tech accountable. Maybe they are doing Google, Apple, Facebook, or Amazon's bidding. Who knows? Um but it was it was a dumb move. Look, the president my position is that is Humphrey's executive is clearly wrong. The president is the head of the executive branch. He is he has the executive power under article 2 and you can't divide that power among commissioners on a multi- head commission. So I think the president has the legal uh right to fire whoever the hell he wants in the executive branch. And uh that that's my legal position. My policy and political position was this was a stupid move again because why would you want to damage the bipartisan coalition? I I always say this about President Biden. I was his biggest opponent on everything except for his bipartisan antirust law enforcement. I think that's the one thing that he did very well with Lena Khan and Jonathan Cancer and Doha over there. She continued from the Trump to the Biden administration. And it requires that bipartisan coalition to take on the biggest monopolist in the world, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. If you did not have that bipartisan commission, we would not have been able to bring these antitrust lawsuits and and win them, right? And so that's why I started the Internet Accountability Project. That's why Rachel and I took so much grief. I grew up with red hair. I I really don't care if I'm getting punched in the face. Um if I'm not getting punched in the face, I really don't know what's happening. And so I I go out of my way to get punched in the face. But um Rachel, I I feel I feel sorry for Rachel. She's much more attractive and she was getting punched in the face every day when we started this thing. So I apologize to you for that, Rachel, as the sacrificial lamb. But um it it requires a bipartisan coalition to to take on these these tech companies. And look, I think this is a I think by firing these FTC commissioners, I don't I don't think President Trump was making a conscious decision to break up the the what he started. He's the one who brought these antirust lawsuits in the first term. I think that uh I think that that some people who have ulterior motives motives may have uh gotten to him at with with the wrong angle on this. And so it's going to take it's going to the bipartisan coalition is not dead. I will make damn sure that doesn't happen. Uh, and we will fix this and move on. D, let's talk about mechanically the future of some of these cases. How does some of this executive action and these fights within the Trump coalition actually affect the success of future cases or not ongoing cases and potential future cases that might be able to be brought forward. Totally. So, there's nothing harder than taking on trillion dollar companies um as a lawyer, right? There are lots of hard things we did at the Justice Department from spoofing cases to um terrorism cases and things like that. But um you know going up against opponents that have the resources and power of sovereigns, right, and sometimes exceeding sovereigns in some cases um really takes um a very serious commitment and having the support right like sort of whole of government support to do that is very very important. If you think that there are factional forces that may undercut that effort, um that you know your job may be threatened, right, if you pick the big fights, that can cause some people um to tense up. We were fortunate, right, because we did not care, right, when we were governing. Um and I I see that there are bold um leaders who are committed to those fights that um we picked and they're going to pick their own fights, right? they're going to um bring other kinds of monopolization cases that I think will be very important for us to see. Um but again, I I suspect there will be clash and when you have those clashes, it is very important to have a backbone of steel, right? and and go the distance and see that there are public trials um that are, you know, um attendable, viewable by the American public, um that there's a real accounting, that there are um that there's real accountability, right, for these companies. I think I think that's something I think that the American people want. It's about getting there. And so, Mike, you know, we have to navigate if we do want to get to some place like that, a lot of these coalitional factions. So you're alluding to bad advice and some of these other things. It's very clear that there's a big war inside of the administration. So I mean a lot of the people in this room may be involved in some of those fights, you know, behind the scenes. What's the advice that you can give left and right in order to bolster the faction that does want to take on big tech? I think you need to be persistent and dog it and remember what you're up against. You're up against a$4 trillion dollar big tech monopouist who have a lot of lawyers. They have a lot of lobbyists. They have a lot of advertising money and they are very good at this game. They want to do everything they can to protect their monopolies and they will crush people in their way. And so what I what I say to conservatives is to make them understand this is not, you know, Marxist big big government stuff. This is antitrust. These are century old antitrust laws. The the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act, they've been on the books for over 100 years. And these are law enforcement tools, right? They are targeted law enforcement tools. These uh the antitrust laws are the opposite of regulation. You saw Facebook spending money calling for regulation because of course if you're a trillion dollar monopolist, you can afford regulations. Those are a rounding air for for a trillion dollar company. But if you're a startup company, those regulations are an entry barrier. And Facebook knows that. That's why they're calling for them, right? So, if you target the anti- anti-competitive tumors on the free market, I always say the free market requires a functioning market. And when you have trillion dollar big tech monopolists crushing competition, you no longer have a functioning market. You no longer have a free market. So, if you target those tumors, that helps the entire market, right? That that that helps all the startup competitors. It's not regulation. It's the opposite of regulation. And so that's the ar those are the arguments I make to conservatives and I just make them constantly and doggedly for the last five years along with Rachel and you know we ultimately won. Absolutely. So Tohok can you give some advice now you're a private citizen. What was it like on the inside when you're taking on you know multi-t trillion dollar market cap and a building bigger than this that's just full of one group of DC lawyers not to mention all lawyers across the country. What is that like not only at a psychological level but navigating the coalitions which is what a lot of uh people in the conservative movement are finding now that they're actually in government and having the knife fights around this. Yeah. I think that um when you are governing you have to remember that you are responsible for governing for the entire American people. Um you have to talk to the entire American people and recognize that most like the ordinary person cannot vindicate their economic liberty. And that's how I view some of these tech fights. like this is an economic liberty problem. And so for all, you know, all of us who were in um my front office, we were constantly thinking about, you know, who is the core American that is harmed, right? Like um in JetBlue Spirit, for example, we were thinking about the person who couldn't otherwise get home um to see a loved one to attend a graduation without um Spirit's low fars. When we were thinking about the Google search trial strategy, we were thinking about um the average person going to the internet and visiting an access point so they could get information and make choices for themselves about how they wanted to live their lives, right? when we were thinking about um other cases that I won't call out, we were thinking about developers, right, who in many cases had better and more interesting products that they could have brought to market and one on the merits but for other entrenched monopolies. And so I think keeping at the forefront of your brain the American people is a really powerful um motivator to do the right things for the right reasons. And it actually informs better trial strategies because it turns out generalist judges can you know make heads or tails of facts. They can apply the law. But you know helping them understand the stakes and the stakes could not be higher here um is the most important thing you can do when you're on the inside. And so on that telling, who cares if there are folks who um may be um you know shilling or um may be captured right by big powerful entrenched interests like that's been true since the beginning of time, right? But you have to have vision and focus and a real sense of mission. Yeah, I think I really want to end on that note because ultimately this organization is built on empowering startups. And so when we think about, you know, the future of the US economy and uh what the big tech companies always tell us is that they're our golden, you know, our golden goose. Like look at all the amount of growth uh that has come from them. They're the ones that are responsible. Uh but I think they often ignore like where not only they came from but the ability to achieve that sometime in the future. And so, Mike, when you're talking now potentially to some of the builders in the audience or the people who want to empower the builders, how are they supposed to think about antirust policy when they're actively both trying to build something and navigate the very platforms that are either oppressing them or that they may have to sell to earlier than they may not want to. I mean, these big tech platforms are bad for competition. They're bad for innovation. They stifle uh they stifle our economy. Uh they they stifle the the startup economy. They stifled small and mid-size companies. Let me just give you an example. I don't know if you guys saw this news story yesterday that Google intentionally makes its search worse for its users so it can give the users more of its ads. Yeah. Right. The only reason they can do that is because they have like a 95% market share, right? Because Google search it. It's like Kleenex. If you how do you go search on the internet? You Google it, right? And uh remember when they said if you if you don't like Google build your own. Okay. Well, Microsoft, not a small company, spent5 billion dollars trying to create a competitor to Google search. And it's called Bang. Uh a lot of you guys are young out here in the audience. Have you ever heard of Bang? Google it. Probably only as a joke. Doa, same question to you. Um, look for the startup uh the startups for the folks who have an innovative spirit. I mean, I I just think that it rhymes with just core notions of American ingenuity. And I would say that antitrust is here for you. Um, you should take interest in the politics and the policy. Um, because ultimately, um, my vision is not, um, you know, to be prescriptive. I don't think anyone who is very serious about antitrust wants to, um, meet out like certain outcomes. Um whether you are a trillion dollar company like you know the Microsofts of the world or um you are someone in your garage like I grew up in North Carolina right like I want it to be easy for someone to create a search engine in their garage in North Carolina right and to offer something that's differentiated or is a wholesale competitor and like that's what this is about right the core of antitrust is dispersion of economic opportunity and making sure that people actually can win on their merits, right? We don't punish success in this country, but there are rules of market participation. And I just think it's a travesty that we as a country that um you know, again, invented internet search, invented flight, like so many American so many wonderful things that the entire world enjoys were created or researched and like funded in the United States. And to lose that, right, to lose our edge is just it's like unspeakably sad to me, right? And so that's what antitrust is about. I think that's really well said. It's also you made a good call there to be interested in politics. I remember I was in San Francisco maybe eight years ago. Uh there was some tech founder there. He's multi- whatever billionaire net worth and he was laughing at me and he was like, I don't care about Washington at all. I was like, well, they're going to care about you. And I saw him on Congress not that long ago. So uh you know there's a bit of a it was there was a hubris I think Mike uh that existed at that time that uh this market and this ecosystem both could ignore regulatory scrutiny but also that they were genuinely above everything else. And so that's kind of where I want to end it here is about antitrust and where the future of this all looks like. And so where should we look for the future of the antitrust movement? Now, it almost seems quaint to be talking about Google and everything, especially with the rise of so many of these AI companies and trying specifically to lay a groundwork and a foundation to make sure that it doesn't go that industry in the same way that they uh that the original uh tech monopolies did. So, where do you see things going in that direction? Well, I think under President Obama, we saw eight years of antirust amnesty and that continued for at the beginning of the Trump administration. Doha was a leading force to make sure that that ended with min and then uh with cancer and Biden under President Biden and that was so important to do that because we had to end big tech big tech had this dangerous combination of both antirust amnesty and section 230 immunity. And so they acted like they were above the law because they were right. And they had way too much power. I mean they had so much power. Right. I I I get we have different politics here, but they had so much power that they deplatformed the sitting president of the United States. And so that tells you how much power these uh trillion dollar big tech platforms have. I think you're seeing this bipartisan coalition, even with this FTC hiccup. I think this bipartisan coalition is going to continue because it has to continue. If we don't break up this gatekeeping power by these trillion dollar big tech monopolists, it's only going to get worse, especially with AI. I mean, just imagine if Google uh controls AI. I mean, I can't think of anything more dangerous to our country. They they always say this is a national security issue. China is a Google puppet. They they built project dragonfly for the the CCP uh for their military while they refused to do the American project uh uh project Maven, right? So they they refused to do American drone program uh while they were doing the CCP project dragonfly. So like this idea that big tech is a uh that big tech companies are pro America is just wrong. The most dangerous thing imaginable is if these Chinese controlled companies get a hold of AI that's last question then same to you Doha. Where does the future assuming we're not in a third Trump administration and orth Yeah, you're right. Uh uh it's he didn't mean Donald Trump FDR got four terms. Why can't Trump he meant Trump Jr. or Baron, right? He'll age into it by that time. But just fell over. Yeah. assuming that we are uh do we do see a Democrat- elected president again? What will the uh antirust future look like under them? I just have to say everybody go home and and hug your 22nd amendment. Um but uh look the future um I think will be colored by you know this convergence of economic issues and national security. I think Mike is exactly right. These companies are obsequious to malign foreign powers. I think the most prominent being um China. Um I think that the AI race is going to be made better by open markets, vibrant markets, um you know, investment in our um semiconductor industry, making sure that we're investing in industrial policy, right? In addition to antitrust that um really um helps to grow up these like essential products and services that we'll need. Um and then there's a whole like layer, right? an applications layer um that I think will grow and thrive if the infrastructure um is there. You know, the other thing I would point out is just that, you know, there's big tech on its own terms, but really everything is tech, right? Um I was reading a a report the other day that posited that the healthc care crisis may be a domestic security crisis and that was um extremely alarming to me. And so remembering that um technology entrenched technological power may make adjacent industries worse. And so when we're thinking about healthcare hyperscalers or um you know agriculture hyperscalers, right, you're we had farmers coming in to tell us constantly about the surveillance of farming equipment, right? Taking in information about seeding and planting and growing. And I just I found that extremely alarming. And so our inability to get a handle on this will make or break the future, right? And I'm I'm hopeful. I'm optimistic because there are folks like Mike and Gail and Andrew and Mark and others who are going to take the baton um who have taken the baton, but there's just there's so much work to be done and we need to be focused on the next round of fights. There you go. All right. Well, let's get a round of applause for our panelists. They were great.