Speaker 1: We have been talking on Bloomberg Law about President elect
Speaker 1: Trump's effect on the Supreme Court going forward, but his effect,
Speaker 1: of course, is going to be felt throughout the federal government,
Speaker 1: and one place he has expressed concerns, although he has
Speaker 1: not really set forth what his policy preferences are is
Speaker 1: in the area of anti trust enforcement. He hasn't explicitly
Speaker 1: said what he's going to do or been his detailed
Speaker 1: about it as his opponent Hillary Clinton had been. But
Speaker 1: he has criticized the proposed A T and T and
Speaker 1: Time Warner merger and other has made some remarks that
Speaker 1: have had some implications for anti trust. He's been suited
Speaker 1: in the past about anti trust, but no one really
Speaker 1: knows exactly what he's going to do with us here
Speaker 1: today to talk about what President elect Trump might do
Speaker 1: in the anti trust area is Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Ree. Jennifer,
Speaker 1: Welcome to the program. Hi, how are you? Thank you
Speaker 1: for having me. So what do we know so far
Speaker 1: about what President elect Trump might do in the anti
Speaker 1: trust area? Well, you know, I think that you just
Speaker 1: described of it, and the best term that I've heard
Speaker 1: is that he's really a wild card. Um typically a
Speaker 1: Republican administration is friendly to businesses and would be a
Speaker 1: good thing for antitrust in easing the review on mergers
Speaker 1: and and easing you know, opening of investigations and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But here, as you mentioned, the few
Speaker 1: statements that UM Donald Trump has made about anti trust
Speaker 1: has been to criticize consolidation and UM particularly consolidation amongst
Speaker 1: large media companies and and too much control in the
Speaker 1: hands of one entity, which is what he said about
Speaker 1: Amazon and Jeff Bezos. So you know, you have both
Speaker 1: sides of the coin, a business owner and a Republican UM,
Speaker 1: but who is not traditional, not a traditional Republican who
Speaker 1: has to the extent he's expressed anything, it has been
Speaker 1: some indication to actually be a vigorous enforcer. Jennifer Scregg store, um,
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about Donald Trump's experience with
Speaker 1: antitrust law as a business man, and might that give
Speaker 1: us some ideas about what he would do as president.
Speaker 1: You know, first, a lot of those experiences were quite
Speaker 1: a long time ago, in the nineteen eighties, and he
Speaker 1: has been both a plaintiff and a defendant in the
Speaker 1: anti trust matters. So it's clear that he knows the
Speaker 1: anti drust laws and how they work and what kind
Speaker 1: of an effect they can have. And he's also already
Speaker 1: used them as a tool, given that he's been a
Speaker 1: plaintiff and he's had some success, um minimal success. He
Speaker 1: as an owner of the USFL in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: for example, he sued the NFL for monopolization and ultimately
Speaker 1: the jury agreed with him and decided that the NFL
Speaker 1: was a monopolist in violation of the anti trust laws,
Speaker 1: but had decided that the difficulty that the USFL was
Speaker 1: having was due to mismanagement and not the NFL's monopolistic conduct,
Speaker 1: so they only awarded a dollar in that case. UM.
Speaker 1: He also had been sued I think in the past
Speaker 1: related to some of his dealings in Atlantic City, UM,
Speaker 1: in which he was accused of conspiring to try to
Speaker 1: push out competitors. I think he had some success. That
Speaker 1: was where he was a defendant, and he had some
Speaker 1: success with that suit as well. What do we know,
Speaker 1: Jennifer about what kind of impact president like Trump will
Speaker 1: have once he's in office on the Federal Trade Commission. Well,
Speaker 1: I I think that's where his biggest impact will be
Speaker 1: for right now, I mean of course he'll be able
Speaker 1: to appoint um appoint officials to the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: as well. But right now the Federal Trade Commission, which
Speaker 1: normally has five commissioners, is operating with three, So right
Speaker 1: off the bat he has two slots to fill UM
Speaker 1: and I think the current chairman, Edith Ramirez, will likely
Speaker 1: leave because her term actually already expired in September, and
Speaker 1: she is a Democrat. And the way that commission is
Speaker 1: set up, of the five commissioners, no more than three
Speaker 1: can be of one political party, so you will always
Speaker 1: either have three Republicans and two two Democrats and vice versa.
Speaker 1: And during a democratic administration, you would normally have three Democrats.
Speaker 1: So in this case, with these openings and his ability
Speaker 1: to appoint, we're likely going to flip from what we
Speaker 1: up now with a majority two Democrats one Republican, to
Speaker 1: three Republicans and two Democrats, giving Republicans the majority. And
Speaker 1: the reason that can have importance is because when the
Speaker 1: FTC makes a decision to take an action, it requires
Speaker 1: a vote, and it must be a majority vote. So um,
Speaker 1: where you have the three Republicans, if the commissioners vote
Speaker 1: along party lines, then there may be less of a likelihood,
Speaker 1: to let's sake, go to court to seek to block
Speaker 1: a deal, Jennifer. For me, at least when Donald Trump
Speaker 1: was was criticizing consolidation, particularly in the media industry, it
Speaker 1: was sometimes hard to distinguish whether he was talking about
Speaker 1: his claim that the election was being rigged or whether
Speaker 1: there was something more more antitrust focused about his comments. Um,
Speaker 1: do you think it's fair to at least speculate that
Speaker 1: he might want to treat consolidation in the media industry
Speaker 1: differently than he might in the drug industry or or
Speaker 1: some other business. I think that's absolutely fair. You know,
Speaker 1: everything that he's talked about in terms of anti trust
Speaker 1: has been targeted at media companies, and I know he
Speaker 1: had he had a lot of anger um with the
Speaker 1: media during the election, and it wouldn't surprise me if
Speaker 1: I guess in a way it would be to use
Speaker 1: the anti trust as a tool to get back at
Speaker 1: you know, what he considers his enemies. Jennifer. We you know,
Speaker 1: we're going to have to do a little bit of
Speaker 1: crystal ball here, but there's been One of his most
Speaker 1: prominent supporters was Rudy Giuliani, who served in the Justice
Speaker 1: Department in the Reagan administration, which was some time ago,
Speaker 1: and Rudy's political views seemed to have changed a bit
Speaker 1: over time. But is there some possibility to say if
Speaker 1: Rudy gets appointed as Attorney General that we might see
Speaker 1: a more Reagan Esque approach to anti trust? You know,
Speaker 1: I would think that would be the case. And even
Speaker 1: if it wasn't Rudy Giuliani, it was sort of a
Speaker 1: more to what you think of as a more traditional
Speaker 1: or Reagan type Republican who was Um appointed to some
Speaker 1: of these positions, both FTC and d o J. Because,
Speaker 1: as I said, the more traditional Republican position has been
Speaker 1: to be uh more hands off, have a lighter hand
Speaker 1: on the anti trust and more friendly to business. And
Speaker 1: if he's going to appoint people like that who are
Speaker 1: going to you know, follow through with that position, then
Speaker 1: you would think overall things might get a little bit
Speaker 1: easier on the anti trust enforcement than they have been
Speaker 1: in the last two years. There's a real tension here,
Speaker 1: isn't there you know, kind of the who is the
Speaker 1: real Donald Trump or what Donald Trumper are we going
Speaker 1: to see? On one hand, there is Rudy Giuliani. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, Um you know, Trump's message with so
Speaker 1: much of a populist message that one might perceive that
Speaker 1: he has somebody who wants to go after big companies,
Speaker 1: break them up, or at least prevent them from from merging.
Speaker 1: I I agree. I think it's really um you know,
Speaker 1: I think those comments were really tough because they seem
Speaker 1: more like the comments of a Democrat. Mean, I think
Speaker 1: I even wrote this up that what he was saying
Speaker 1: was aligned with exactly what Senator Elizabeth Warren was saying
Speaker 1: at the same time that she had a real issue
Speaker 1: with the amount of control and power that some of
Speaker 1: these some of the tech companies had, like Amazon and
Speaker 1: Google and companies like that. And so it's very odd
Speaker 1: here where he when he takes on that populous message,
Speaker 1: he's aligning himself with with the more typical democratic position, uh,
Speaker 1: but in a situation where he's more likely to appoint
Speaker 1: decision makers in the area who have a more traditional
Speaker 1: Republican position. So so it's a very strange situation. So
Speaker 1: we could end up though, in a situation anti trust
Speaker 1: as a place where we could end up not only
Speaker 1: with some battles, say between the appointees and the president.
Speaker 1: If as your seemed to be implying. But also this
Speaker 1: is a place where the president can really um affect
Speaker 1: a lot of policy changes in the economic sphere, isn't it,
Speaker 1: you know? I I think so. It depends on who
Speaker 1: he appoints, you know, under the anti trust laws and
Speaker 1: the way these things work, especially with merger review, the
Speaker 1: president really can't do anything to stop a deal that
Speaker 1: the d O j r FTC has decided is not
Speaker 1: anti competitive or shouldn't be blocked, you know, if they
Speaker 1: go forward with the deal, even with his objection, that's
Speaker 1: how it goes. The President doesn't have the authority to
Speaker 1: try to stop the deal or otherwise block the deal.
Speaker 1: Did you need a court order to do that, and
Speaker 1: the president can't take it into court either. So in
Speaker 1: my mind, it really has to do more with the
Speaker 1: people he puts in place to make these these these
Speaker 1: decisions then actually his own position, and if there's tension
Speaker 1: that could cause problems. Jennifer, let me just before we
Speaker 1: close in very quickly ask you do you think the
Speaker 1: A T and T Time Warner deals in trouble now?
Speaker 1: I think I don't think that it is. Uh, the
Speaker 1: deal is a vertical deal. It doesn't combine to competitors.
Speaker 1: And when you talk about consolidation or too much concentration,
Speaker 1: at least in antitrust parlance which you're thinking about, our
Speaker 1: is too much one one buyer or seller of a
Speaker 1: competing product. And that's not what you have here. So
Speaker 1: you have a vertical integration, which is usually thought of
Speaker 1: as more efficient. Thank you, Jennifer Free Bloomberg Intelligence Analysis,
Speaker 1: talking about possible antitrust action in the Trump administration.