Did a Worm Really Eat RFK Jr.'s Brain?

Doctor Horton
Your new beginning starts now. Doctor Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces and smart home technology, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, Doctor Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn more@drhorton.com Doctor Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.

Simplisafe Home security
Today's presenting sponsor is Simplisafe Home security. What do you have planned for mom this Mother's Day?

I don't know, but I kind of want to give Emily a little childcare help. That's what I'm thinking. While you're spending quality time with mom, it feels great knowing your home is protected with Simplisafe's award winning security system. Us news and World Report named it the best home security systems of 2024. And we always trust them, too. John Lovett has a simplisafe. He's had it for years. He installed it himself. It's great. It's backed by 24/7 professional monitoring for less than a dollar a day. So you get fast emergency response and dispatch when you need it most. Simplisafe professional monitoring agents can even help stop crime in real time by speaking to intruders through the wireless indoor camera, warning them that they're being recorded and police are on their way. With no contract and a 60 day money back guarantee, you can try simplisafe risk free. Don't absolutely love it. Send the system back for a full refund. Simplisafe has given so many people real peace of mind. We want you to have it, too. Right now. Get 20% off any new Simplisafe system with fast protect monitoring@simplisafe.com. Crooked. That's simplisafe.com crooked. There's no safe like simplisafe.

Dan Pfeiffer
Welcome to Pod Save America. I'm Dan Pfeiffer.

Alyssa Mastromonico
And I'm Alyssa Mastromonico.

Dan Pfeiffer
On today's show, stormy Daniels takes a stand again in Trump's hush money trial. Trump prepares a huge giveaway to big oil. President Biden says he won't send offensive weapons to Israel if the IDF invades. Rafa RFK junior says a worm aid his brain. Joe Biden may be getting results on his abortion messaging. And Marjorie Taylor Green's effort to ditch Mike Johnson goes down in a humiliating landslide. Later, Federal Trade Commission chair Lena Khan stops by to talk with Lovett about all the big moves she's made on antitrust and worker protections. But first, here with me is the one and only list of Master Monaco, host of our excellent podcast hysteria, former White House deputy chief of staff, my coworker, longtime friend for almost 20 years now.

Alyssa Mastromonico
20 years. Yeah.

Dan Pfeiffer
I don't know why I did this. You need no introduction to this audience. Welcome to the pod, and thanks for doing this, buddy.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I'm just glad to be here with you.

Dan Pfeiffer
I'm excited to have you. I learned that you were doing this podcast yesterday.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Yeah, I know. I was like, I've been looking forward to this for a month.

Dan Pfeiffer
And, well, I knew we were doing it, but I wouldn't say I was reading the, the spreadsheet very carefully and fair enough. So it was a wonderful surprise. So here we are. Okay. Today with Stormy Dan was his second day on the stand. I will leave it to the very smart legal experts that I follow on Twitter to assess just how effective she was. But I will say we learned a lot and almost certainly more than we needed to know about Trump. She told us about spanking him with a rolled up magazine, what position they had sex in, and that he called her quote unquote, honey bunch after they were done. Frankly, this is the first time that I was glad the trial was not televised. Now, John and Rebecca Katz talked about this some on Wednesday. But Alyssa, I and our audience would love to know just what you think about what Stormy had to say on the stand.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Okay. So, one, I feel less smart. I am definitely less smart for having been tracking all this. I am troubled. I guess troubled is not the word. I was overly interested in the fact that Trump was interested in whether stormy got residuals and whether she was unionized as a sex worker.

I'm like, was he just figuring out how much money she made, or was he, like, thinking about getting in on the action? Like, does he think that he should get something from it? I mean, today was, today was truly other level extraordinary. We heard stormy talk about, or we heard reports of stormy talking about whether her house was haunted with paranormal activity and came to find out that it was, in fact, just a possum.

Dan Pfeiffer
And I don't know, frankly, I don't know what's worse, a ghost or a possum.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I don't know what's worse.

And then, you know, the other thing is we watched an entire, again, I keep saying watched. What I did was watch Jake Tapper talk about what he watched. A whole defense strategy that's literally just meant to keep Donald Trump from rage tweeting.

Dan Pfeiffer
You mean the fact that they used it they, the Trump's attorneys, instead of trying to deal with the actual crime at hand, tried to call her a liar for this multiply corroborated set of events.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Because Trump's like, you better show her up. You better embarrass her. You better make me believe that you're working for me so that I don't take to Twitter to say what I really think or act.

Dan Pfeiffer
Whatever he does, you better give me something that I can take. The Melania when this is over.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Exactly right.

Dan Pfeiffer
Because you can't just cop to what actually happened like that, even though that this is, whether he had sex with her or not is actually not material, the legal case here, but obviously something his attorneys were set to try to and very awkwardly and clumsily and pretty ineffectively disprove.

So it was, yeah, not, not great. Not a great performance from his mid tier attorneys.

Alyssa Mastromonico
No.

Dan Pfeiffer
A few weeks ago, I spoke to a smart democratic strategist who was concerned that weeks of testimony about Trump having sex with a porn star would make him seem younger and more virile. What do you think? Did Stormy's testimony actually make Trump seem vigorous or like a giant, pervy weirdo?

Alyssa Mastromonico
I mean, that's a layup of a question if I ever.

Dan Pfeiffer
Look, I want your honest opinion. It's not lead the witness here.

Alyssa Mastromonico
So here's what I'm going to say. A man who we hear about in his boxer shorts and undershirt, not even a t shirt. Use of the word undershirt is so extreme.

It was giving me Rodney Dangerfield vibes, like, every time they were talking about him. And then also, he just kept falling asleep during the trials. So, like, no, I didn't. My takeaway from the past week has not been that Trump is virile and ready to go.

Dan Pfeiffer
Look, I am a petty man, and Donald Trump being forced to sit there while gagged to confront his sexual inadequacy and general awkwardness is something that I personally enjoy. And I think that that is a sign that there is a sense of justice in the universe.

I'm kind of skeptical that this part of the trial matters any, in any way, one way or the other. It's just one. We sort of know people aren't paying a ton of attention to just the fact that the trial is even happening, let alone what's reading the reports on social media of what Stormy Daniels said on trial or watching midday cable television about what she said on trial. This might be different if this was televised and people could see her say this and the camera pans and Trump is like half sleeping, half fuming. Like that could matter. But he.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Right. Like, you and I. You and I were what? Like sophomores in college when the OJ trial was on tv?

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, we were freshmen and sophomores. It was on tv.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Freshmen and sophomores.

Dan Pfeiffer
The verdict was our sophomore year. Yeah.

Alyssa Mastromonico
And that was. And I mean, you've got to love it. We're old enough that I will cop to the fact that when that verdict came out, it was on a loudspeaker across campus, because there was no email back then. But it might be different if we could watch it. It might be more riveting. But when you get the readout of this very boring, gross trial, it's like, move on.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, it is wild that only a few years after the Rodney King riots, and while people were preparing for riots in the wake of the OJ verdict, however it went that the natural inclination of America's educational institutions were that if you were in high school, we were going to wheel. Wheel in a tv so the kids could watch it, or in college, announce the verdict on the loudspeaker like nothing bad happened, at least where I was. But it's just like a wild situation. Yeah. This is. I don't think that's how the Donald Trump hush money trial verdict will be handled at America's high schools. I don't think you're going to get. Probably not the jury or watch, I guess, in this case. Jake Tapper, tell us what the jury said. But I think there are real political consequences for Trump or potential political consequences if he is convicted. All the stuff in the middle is pretty big a deal.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Yeah.

Dan Pfeiffer
Not, I wouldn't say a nothing burger. It's embarrassing to Trump and it has these, like, knock on effects of he, the more embarrassed he is, the more insecure becomes, the more he acts like a lunatic.

Alyssa Mastromonico
And that's very true. That's very true.

Dan Pfeiffer
But the testimony itself, like, no one thought Donald Trump was not a giant, pervy weirdo. Like, that's really part of his brand. He wears that on his sleeve. Right. It might as well. Might as well be on his hat right under maga. So it's not like new information is going to change voters opinions, but still, like, great, I'm glad we, you know, I don't feel better knowing it, but I'm glad he had to. I'm glad he has to live in a world where we all know it.

Alyssa Mastromonico
And that he has to sit there and watch it all go down.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. And just mutter to himself, you know, and I do think one thing that.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Is the muttering is a real thing. Yeah, he was, he muttered bullshit today.

Dan Pfeiffer
I guess he, I mean, and we know he cares about this because after the test, the witnesses were done. Today, his attorneys went back and asked Judge Mershon to amend the gag order to allow him to respond specifically to what Stormy Daniels said because some of her associates had been on cable tv corroborating the events. And he feels like he has an obligation to talk about it. And that that request was denied because, as Joseph said, he couldn't really take, uh, Trump's attorneys at their word that it would be a low, quote, unquote, low key response. So he will not, I mean, he will probably violate those gag orders, maybe end up in jail for a night, which would be fun and make for great content on this podcast at least.

Alyssa Mastromonico
You know, I would love that.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, we will. If he is in prison, we'll have you back.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Thank you so much.

Dan Pfeiffer
Ok. On Thursday at the courthouse, Trump also went to speak to reporters where he called the case a sham. But he also attacked President Biden and jewish voters. Let's take a listen. Biden is doing with respect to Israel is disgraceful.

If any jewish person voted for Joe Biden, they should be ashamed of themselves. He's totally abandoned Israel and nobody can believe it. What Trump was referring to was comments Biden made in an interview with CNN's Aaron Burnett on Wednesday, announcing that he would stop sending certain weapons to Israel if they invade. Rafael Trump also posted a truth accusing Biden of signing with Hamas and funding what he called the, quote, radical mobs taking over our college campuses. All very subtle stuff, both on pot save America earlier this week, and then on pod save the world. Uh, there's been a lot of conversation about the policy implications of President Biden's decision. But, Alyssa, I wanted to ask you about Trump's response. Republicans painting democrats as anti Israel, nothing new. But what was your take on Trump's attack on jewish people who voted for Biden?

Alyssa Mastromonico
Well, Dan, in 2017, we watched a mob of white supremacist neo Nazis march with torches and swastikas and guns, chanting, jews will not replace us and white lives matter, while they were marching to save a confederate statue of Robert E. Lee. The end result of this mayhem was that one of their neo Nazis drove his car into counter protesters, killing a woman. Trump's response to that was, there are very fine people on both sides. And so to say that, I don't care what Trump's advice to jewish people, Democrats, et cetera is, is an understatement.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I don't want to delve back into the media criticism that caused me to sort of stumble into a feud with executive of the New York Times this week, but this is a great example of the double standard that bedevil's coverage of Biden and Trump. If Joe Biden had said anything like this, it would be a seven day story. Every Democrat on Capitol Hill would be asked to, to disavow his comments, to comment on his comments.

Some Democrats would feel politically compelled to offer a resolution on the House floor condemning Joe Biden for it. And there will be nothing on the Trump side for this. We'll just, just kind of hear it and move on. Biden will take more shit and be under more pressure to denounce the anti semitic signs held by people protesting him than a single elected Republican will be to denounce something that the person that they are supporting for president, United States said. And so, and I think you, the point you make about Charlottesville is very important here because this is not an isolated incident. This is not Donald Trump just saying something off the cuff in his wacky way. He has a long history of anti semitic tropes. He has shared anti semitic memes about his opponent, saying that they're controlled by Jews and money. He has dined with anti Semites and neo Nazis like Nick Fuentes and Kanye west. He has reportedly said that Hitler did some good things over and over and over again. He does this and every, and there is less of a reaction from everyone, you know, not just the media, but also Democrats, or else he, he, you know, we are the fraud, the, in the very tired metaphor of the Trump era, where the frogs being slowly boiled in the pot. And it, it is, it is a big deal. And it is why a lot of the people who marched with him on January 6, who raided the Capitol, came from organizations with histories of ties to neo Nazis, with anti Semitism. It is a part of the movement, a very dangerous part of the movement that he has built in this country, and it shouldn't be ignored.

Okay. This got overshadowed by the Israel news, but Biden also used the CNN interview to drive the economic message in some pretty sharp ways. Let's take a listen.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Why should people here believe that you will succeed at creating jobs where Trump failed?

Aaron Burnett
He's never succeeded in creating jobs, and I've never failed. I've created over 15 million jobs since I've been president.

So we have a very different view. I look at it from physician not being facetious. From the Scranton perspective, he looks at it from Mar a Lago perspective.

He wants to give more significant tax cuts to the super wealthy. We've already turned it around. Look, look at the Michigan survey for 65% of american people think they're in good shape economically. They think the nation's not in good shape, but they're personally in good shape. The polling data has been wrong all along.

Dan Pfeiffer
It's pretty clear why the president is doing this. A new poll from Politico shows he has work to do. According to that poll, of all of Biden's accomplishments, the Inflation Reduction act is the only one that a majority of poll respondents had heard much about.

The election is now, and this kind of pains me to say this less than six months from now.

Listen, as you know better than anyone else, time is the campaign's most limited resource. Do you think it's smart for Biden to spend time reminding people his accomplishments, or should he be spending his time talking about his plans for the future, how he's gonna improve people's lives, et cetera?

Alyssa Mastromonico
Dan, is this where I say both and we move on?

Dan Pfeiffer
No. I mean, no, you have to explain.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I'm just kidding.

Dan Pfeiffer
You know, often when I write these questions, I will say a, b, or c, and c is always both. But I took the both out for you.

Alyssa Mastromonico
No, of course, one. Of course it's both. But it's, Donald Trump has such an easier job here because it's so much easier to sell grievance than it is to get gratitude, which is kind of what Biden is after. And I was reading something former lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, Mandela Barnes said, which is that so many people in America still remember getting that $1,500 check that Trump demanded to sign himself. Right. And so I think now Biden has to my opinion, and, you know, that's.

Dan Pfeiffer
Why you're here, is your opinion.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I can be very, look, some, I'm not saying I'm always right, but I would say that, for me, I think he needs to, Biden does need to do both, but I, in selling the accomplishments, would get as granular as possible. You know, when he talks about creating the jobs, when he talks about, you know, like, the biggest, big, sweeping things he's done, I think that goes over people's heads. You know, people get their paycheck now, they pay their bills, and they don't have that much left over. And that's what they know. And so I think that if I were Biden on this in terms of his accomplishments, I would go hyper, hyper local. Pfeiffer, 82% of Americans listen to AM FM radio every week.

Dan Pfeiffer
That's true. I risk it.

Source that stat. I don't even know a person who listens to AM FM radio.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I do.

Dan Pfeiffer
Of course. Of course you do. Yes.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I'm sorry. Pfeiffer, this is where I have to sit and talk to you about how I'm a normal person and you are an elite. You're an elite. I'm just a rural girl who listens to her AM FM radio while making your jam.

Dan Pfeiffer
I know.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Yes. Okay, I'm sorry that I took a different route after we left the White House.

But back to my point is that I would get all the surrogates with the list of hyper local accomplishments that he has had. Whether it's talking about the fact he has capped insulin for seniors at $35 a month, whether seniors don't. Seniors will not have to pay more than $2,000 out of pocket, which, you know, that's a big deal. The fact that they are getting broadband to people. I mean, Pfeiffer, even when we do this podcast every week, I have a landline, for God's sake. And it's still, oh, touch or touch and go. But when they told me that we were getting our new ont boxes because Joe Biden paid for them, you know, and now I have good, good Internet speed, so I.

Dan Pfeiffer
What's an on t box?

Alyssa Mastromonico
Listen, I can't explain how cable works, how Wi Fi and cable work to.

Dan Pfeiffer
You, but it's faster. Joe Biden gave you faster Internet.

Lena Khan
Yeah, he did.

Alyssa Mastromonico
And so I think that in addition to talking about all the things he's going to do, he does have to deeply explain. Like, here's something, and you might remember this a little bit better than I do, but our equivalent of the inflation act when we were in the White House was probably the recovery act. Right?

Yeah, you could infrastructure, like. But in terms of things.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yes. The. Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Alyssa Mastromonico
So to me also, all of the roads and bridges and ports that he's fixing, all the lead pipe that they're getting rid of. So people have clean drinking water. I mean, they need signs up. We had signs. That's what I remember.

Dan Pfeiffer
I remember the signs.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Remember when, you know, what they mostly.

Dan Pfeiffer
Meant to people, this traffic jam brought to you by President Barack Obama when you were stuck on the freeway, maybe.

Alyssa Mastromonico
But that was before the bridges really started collapsing. So people might have a different point of view now. But anyway, that is sort of, that's sort of my point. I do think that people need to be reminded. But when you speak in sort of lofty, general, sweeping terms, people just think it's rhetoric. And so I think that, I just think it needs to be more granular.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, this is, it's all really hard because, you know, something like less than a fifth of the money from all of Biden's big accomplishments, chips act, infrastructure bill, american rescue plan, inflation Reduction act is out the door, and they're moving at record speeds. They have very smart people on it. Just, it takes a long time to get these projects approved, get people to apply for them, get them approved, get shovels in the ground and all of that. So the idea that people would feel the real world benefits of these things that, you know, have one of the jobs that were created, have one of the businesses that were allowed to flourish because of the new bridge or the new Runway or whatever else, that that would have happened in two years or three years, like, that's just, this is not how the world works. And so that's very challenging. But you can see the, you know, like in Wisconsin where the president was on Wednesday, you can see the place where this thing is, this new plant is going to be built and can know these things are going to happen. And then you even see this in ads. Like, Biden has this healthcare ad that John and Rebecca talked about on Wednesday. That's a great ad, but it's like saving you $800 a year in health care costs. And for some seniors, that is absolutely happening. And, but for most Americans, you hear that and you're like, I, if so, if I save the $100, I would know it. Right.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
Like, it has to be believable. And I think his tone in this interview was pretty good. I think most of what he, what they have been doing since the State of the union is very good. The president gets a, the jobs numbers are a sign of success, but they're not the sign of success that people are looking for. It's just all the polling shows that people are viewing this through the prism of cost of living. Right. And primarily gas and gas, groceries and healthcare and housing are the four things. And the place where I think the accomplishments can be helpful is they're credentialing you as someone who can do something again in the future. And that's where insulin and lower prescription drug costs are very helpful because that's a cost issue. You worked. You got it done despite a brutal political environment. And that's evidence that you can do it again. Right. As opposed to, because elections are not about gratitude. They're absolutely not.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I know.

Dan Pfeiffer
You know, they, they do not. And that sometimes it feels like Democrats want that. Right. There was, we eventually pivot away from this after Dobbs, but much of the messaging that a lot of House Democrats wanted in 2022 was Dems deliver.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Right, right. We did.

Dan Pfeiffer
We, we gave you all these things. And it's just not people. Elections always have to be forward looking, not backward looking. But the things that you have done in the past, in the present can help people understand what you would do in the future. And so.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
And that's sort of how, that's the mix here.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I was gonna say even just the progress he has made incrementally, but is still big on student debt relief. Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
For sure. Yeah.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Like, to me, that is a great. But at the same time, you almost wish that Democrats were as.

I don't even know the word, but it's like, I wish that when people got their debt, I have, my veterinarian had her debt forgiven and get her in an ad. She also, she said that she just woke up one day and she had no more debt. And I was like, didn't you get a letter signed by Joe Biden? Do you know what I mean? Like, I feel like Democrats do everything on the up and up, and, you know, we're campaigning against somebody who did things just for the appearances.

Dan Pfeiffer
Well, I mean, very infamously, Obama was presented with the choice in 2009 in the stimulus act to give people a massive payroll tax cut that would just appear in their taxes or to send them a check. And the, the better economic policy, because it puts money, people tend to save checks and then, uh. But, and we needed people to spend money in the economy, and so we made the better policy decision. But no one knew they got that payroll tax cut. Like, to this day, if 1% of Americans were quizzed on what was at the time the largest tax cut for working class people in american history, no one would pass it. So, like, you, you are correct in terms of, like, this is always the choice you make. And it's where Democrats are some sometimes bedeviled by what our old boss used to call the responsibility gene. Right. We want to do it the right way. It's not even about ethics. Right. It's like, what is better policy? What's better for the economy? But sometimes what's good policy does not necessarily overlap with the good politics part of the Venn diagram.

Doctor Horton
Your new beginning starts now. Doctor Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces, and smart home technology, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, Doctor Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn more at Dr. Horton.com doctor Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.

Ted from Consumer Cellular
This show is sponsored by Betterhelp. How do you cope when there's something weighing on you or something you need to get off your chest? You know the best way to do it. Best way to cope is to talk about it. Not just cram it down. Not do what generations of New Englanders have done. Just stuff their feelings down. Maybe cover it with a coat of booze. No. You got to talk to someone. You got to work it out, get it off your chest. And just by doing that, you will feel better. We all carry around different stressors, big and small. When we keep them bottled up, it can start to affect us negatively. Therapy is a safe space to get things off your chest and to figure out how to work through whatever's weighing you down. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give betterhelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist anytime for no additional charge. Get it off your chest with better help. Visit betterhelp.com psa. Go today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp help.com psa.

Simplisafe Home security
This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace Spring is about new beginnings, like starting a new venture or switching things up on your website. Squarespace is the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Use Squarespace to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience, and sell anything from products to time all in one place. With the new guided design system Squarespace blueprint, you can select from curated layout and styling options to create a personalized website optimized for every device. Integrated optimized SEO tools allow your site to show up more often and grow the way you want. Plus make checkout easy for customers with easy to use payment tools. Accept credit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, and in certain countries, give customers the chance to buy now and pay later with afterpay and clearpay. With the Fluid engine feature, you can choose your website starting point and customize every design detail with reimagined drag and drop technology for desktop or mobile, we love Squarespace. It's very easy to use to build your own website. You don't have to be any kind of tech genius. You don't have to be an engineer or no coding. You just use Squarespace. You set up a website. It looks fantastic. Head to squarespace.com for a free trial. And when you're ready to launch, go to squarespace.com. Cricket to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

Dan Pfeiffer
The Washington post reported today that at a meeting at Mar a Lago last month, Trump has big oil executives to raise him a billion dollars. Yes. That is a billion with a b. And in exchange, he promised it'll be worth it for them because he'll cancel Biden's electric vehicle and renewable energy policies if he wins. I imagine that as we are recording this, the Biden campaign is working on an ad or some other way to attack Donald Trump about this. But how would you do it? Would you make it about bad environmental policy or make it about trumping a shill for big corporations?

Alyssa Mastromonico
So once again, I would do both.

Dan Pfeiffer
You're gonna go both?

Alyssa Mastromonico
I'm gonna go both. Here's why.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, but I phrased these questions so incorrectly.

Alyssa Mastromonico
No, but. No, but I'm sorry. I'm giving you the breadth of my knowledge.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yes.

Alyssa Mastromonico
It's like, no, so one. You know, this was literally just reported days ago. It was the hottest April in history.

Every month since June 2023 has been the hottest month on the planet since we started recording these things in the late 18 hundreds. So what does that mean? Pfeiffer, what does that mean? What that means is that people are going to pay more in their electric bills because they're going to have to use air conditioning. It means produce is going to be more expensive because there are going to be droughts. And basically, I think that it needs to be positioned such that Trump is doing something. He's telling these guys to raise him a billion dollars, some of which is probably going to go to pay his legal fees for sure.

Aaron Burnett
Yes.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Right. In addition to his campaign.

And who's going to pay the price ultimately for what he's doing? It's going to be the people whose vote that he is seeking. So that's my point. It has to be both.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.

The answer is always both. Right? Like, this is, this is always the Goldilocks theory of how you get things done in the world, which is you offer people three choices. Right? There's one, one too hot, one too cold, and then one just right. And then C is always just right. But I, I think that the question gets at an important way to think about politics that I think is Trump has sort of scrambled our brain. Like, we, like Trump is this, like, here he is, right? He is saying anti semitic things. He's on trial right now for a crime. There is someone on the stand telling us lurid and embarrassing details about his sex life. He is going to do a thousand other insane things between when we finish recording this podcast and it post tomorrow morning.

But maybe politics is not that complicated. Maybe we've overcomplicated that. And someone being a shill for big corporations has been the best message in american politics for decades. And as we've sometimes lost it with, we have Trump because we are so concerned about democracy and his authoritarian bet and his racism and his misogyny and his corruption and his criminality that we sort of lose the forest for the trees. And here you have, you know, this is same thing. This happened a few weeks ago where Trump had this, you know, he was doing this fundraiser with all these millionaires and billionaires, and while he was asking them to write, in some cases up to a million, nearly a million dollars in contributions to him and the RNC, he was promising them a tax cut. Right? Like that is, nothing would send a persuadable voter up in, up in flames faster than something like that. Here you have big oil, right? One of the most dislike at a time of high gas prices in this country. Trump is promising big oil executives a billion, he's promising them a bunch of policies in a quid pro quo for a billion dollars in campaign donations. Like, that's just a great message. It doesn't matter if the guy who said it is Mitt Romney or John McCain or Sarah Palin or Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis or someone is extraordinary a threat to the country as Donald Trump. That's just a great message. And we should just sometimes, like, get back to basics and hammer him for that. And there's, there's evidence in polling that people, for all the things they think about Trump, and he has some populist, and it's, when I say pop is, I kind of mean nationalist credentials that other Republicans certainly don't have.

But his signature accomplishment, and by signature, I mean kind of his only accomplishment when he was in the White House was a massive tax cut for corporations and the very wealthy. And then at the, by the end of next year, he is going to have to renew that right tax cut, which he has pledged he would do, and maybe even further lower corporate tax rates for these people who he's soliciting donations from. And that will cause that could add, according to a recent report from the center for American Progress, $4 trillion, the deficit. Like, that seems like just sometimes, just like, stick to the simple stuff, right? And this seems like a very clear and obvious message here that doesn't have to get sort of pushed through our post Trump filter. We could just do it like we always did it and drive that message against him.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I'm into that.

Dan Pfeiffer
Good. Good. I like it. Ok. In some better news, the Biden campaign continues to hammer Trump on abortion, releasing a new ad this week, targeted Latinas. And a poll from our friends at Navigator research shows that the number of Americans that believe Trump opposes abortion access is up seven points, and the majority believes he would sign a national abortion ban. This is one of the most hopeful polls I've seen in a long time. I went deep on the numbers in Thursday's message box, a newsletter that I'm sure everyone listening to is definitely subscribed to.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Athena, I have multiple, multiple subscriptions.

Dan Pfeiffer
And you are. You're one of my favorite and most loyal readers. Listen, I appreciate that. But Alyssa, I would love to know what you think about this poll and what it says about how the Biden campaign and Democrats should wage the campaign to come.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I was heartened by today's message box when I saw it at 06:00 a.m.

Dan Pfeiffer
Cause that's not often the reaction from people, right?

Alyssa Mastromonico
No, I was. No, I was heartened because here's the thing, Fife. They, the GOP and conservatives tried to peddle this like pastel filish, laughly bullshit version of what overturning Roe was gonna be, right? They're like, no, we're just gonna save the world from the Samantha's on Sex and the City who are clearly walking around contemplating abortions in the 8th month of pregnancy. Right? And what the entire country has seen is that this is some actual handmaid's tale bullshit. And that what Trump promised was that he would appoint judges that would overturn Roe, or justices, rather, that would overturn Roe, and they did. And what has happened since then, it's not just this. Like, I don't know if people who supported this, who aren't, you know, part of the Susan B. Anthony foundation, thought that this was going to be simple or easy or not as gruesome as it actually is, but it is. And what he has done has created gynecological deserts across the country where women have to drive hundreds of miles to see an Ob GYN.

What this overturning, that was his goal, his stated goal of overturning Roe so he cannot run away from this. No one should let him run away from it. That's why I was so happy to see this poll because I do think it's starting to sink in, is that he has now given way. Overturning row has given way to some of the most psychotic ballot initiatives across the country. When people wanna stand up and say, oh, but we, there are exceptions for the life of the mother. Well, let's talk about how that's played out for a second. What has happened is that exceptions for the life of the mother or for rape or incest, right. Okay. Well, in most of these states where this has taken effect, you have to go to the police, you have to report your rapist, which most people, most women, when they're raped, it's not the first thing on their mind.

And in terms of the life of the mother exception, well, so many of these laws are so fucking restrictive that the doctors want no part of this. That's why we have gynecological deserts, because OB gyns are fleeing states with these laws. Because here's the question. Here's the question, Pfeiffer, if you're a doctor, how close to death does a woman have to be? How far into her sepsis does she have to be for a doctor to say, you know what?

She is so close to dying. I can't be sued by any of these sort of vigilante laws or any of these other laws that have taken effect. So I am glad it is. You know, the poll, to me, reflects kind of what we have been seeing in states that have tried to codify abortion into their state constitutions.

So not only do we see, you know, petitioners getting hundreds of thousands of signatures, but we're seeing them in states that have had votes pass by well over 50%. So I think for Democrats, this is a good issue. I am glad that the messaging has taken hold. I mean, even in a lot of the polling among Republicans, they're like, yeah, we think it should be legal. This is getting a little out of hand. And so I was happy to see it all.

I felt, I was happy.

Dan Pfeiffer
Pfeiffer good, good. That was the intended goal when I put pen to proverbial paper.

One of the reasons why I think it's just important to mention this is this racist felt stuck in mud for a very long time. Like all these huge things keep happening. And, you know, maybe Biden's picked up a point here, maybe he's picked up a point there, but it's still the same. And this is particularly true on the issue of abortion, where this is, you know, commonly believed and fully understood is to be why Democrats won in 2022. In 2023, we've succeeded in these ballot initiatives all across the country that have happened since then, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, et cetera. And there have been these huge moments that have really broken through in the last few months. Right. The Alabama IVF decision, the Florida abortion ban going into effect, the 1864 Arizona law that banned abortion based on a law that was created, a law written before women could have the right to vote, or Arizona was even a state. Just the, you know, Donald Trump announcing his position that he's for, he's like, all these things happened and it felt like it was stuck in mud. But polling at this stage of the race is a lot like a duck on water. Right? It's very calm up top and very frenetic underneath. And this poll shows that underneath, even if the horse race hasn't shifted yet, even if Donald Trump hasn't taken a huge hit in his approval rating, which, or has taken a huge hit, is favorable. Favorable rating, which is down a little bit, that things are shifting underneath, and that voters are coming to see Donald Trump as a real threat to abortion access in a way that they had not before, even though he is the person most singularly responsible for Roe being overturned.

You know, he just, he had been sort of, he doesn't seem like you're traditional, crusading Phyllis Schlafly, to use your example there. You know, anti abortion crusader. Right? He's this kind of, he's a guy right now on stage in his hometown of Manhattan, New York, on trial for crimes that, emanating from an affair with an adult film star. Right? He just doesn't seem like he just, he doesn't code in a way in which voters commonly think about the people who are going to come take their rights and freedoms. But the Biden campaign hammering at other Democrats, hammering it, the press doing a good job of reporting on the consequences of these bans that are, that are in place or being proposed has, had made a difference. And that's in the, and one of the things that's really interesting in this poll that I get into the message box is you've seen real movement with Democrats and Biden 2020 voters or the, or the groups who, who make up the Biden 2020 coalition. I think that's the right way to say it. But is independents have not really moved yet, and there's a huge swath of independence that we still can go convince about Donald Trump. And so there's like, it's not just that we've made gains, that there's still a lot of potential upside there to go get over the next six months. So we've made real progress. And there you can see a path to Trump taking on even more water on this issue. And so I think that is very encouraging. And it feels like, as we sit here today, less than six months before the election, that a little encouragement can go a long way.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I agree with that.

Dan Pfeiffer
Okay, a couple of quick things before Lovett's interview with Lena Khan. First, Marjorie Taylor Green's efforts. Speaker Mike Johnson came to an embarrassingly quick conclusion. On Wednesday afternoon, she finally called up her long promised motion to vacate. Here's how excited people were in the room. For what purpose does a gentlewoman from Georgia seek recognition?

Alyssa Mastromonico
I seek recognition to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of the resolution is as follows, declaring the office of speaker of the House of Representatives to be vacant.

This is the uniparty for the american people watching.

Ari Melbourne
Gentle lady will suspend.

Dan Pfeiffer
The uniparty, aka members of the House with an even remote interest in governing, voted to kill the resolution, 359 to 43. And only ten Republicans voted with Green. Alyssa, how much did you enjoy Marjorie Taylor Greene faceplanting for all the world to see?

Alyssa Mastromonico
I. Okay, so there was a lot to enjoy here first.

Dan Pfeiffer
Okay, let's hear it.

Alyssa Mastromonico
When the Republicans, I think it was Mike Lawler and a couple others, went out to do a little crescevale after that whole Michigas on the floor of the House, and they called her Moscow Marge. He just loved that. Like, when they start name calling each other, I am here for it. And, you know, fife, you know, when she went home last night, she was like, rage lifting. She was like that p 90 x was.

She's sore this morning. That's all I have to say. She is humiliated. The blood vessels were, like, bulging out of her face.

I enjoyed it.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. I mean, look, anytime something embarrassing happens, march Hillary Green. That's a victory for democracy. Anytime.

Most of these Republicans spend most of them pretending like she is a member of the republican party in good standing, right. They're largely scared of her, of her, what influence she has. They help her raise money. They do.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Because of the rage lifting.

Doctor Horton
Yes.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, yeah, I mean, and so to see them turn on her is enjoyable. I will say.

I will say. It's just, it is really interesting that Donald Trump not only truthed about this but he also cut some sort of weird video from somewhere today.

Alyssa Mastromonico
What?

Dan Pfeiffer
Talking about how much he loved her and how she was going to be, you know, a big part of the Republican Party in the MAGA movement for a long time. But he did not think they should be going down this path. So I don't know what the deal is there. Maybe it's because. But Trump is sticking with her on this in a way in which he does not stick with other people. Right. She. He did not want her to do this. He made his wishes very clear. She did it anyway. And instead of doing what he normally does, which is just turn on that person and possibly send a violent mob to attack them, he went out of his way to praise her. It's just a very interesting dynamic about what it is that how he finds her useful, what it is he is afraid of from her. But there's just a very interesting part of that relationship that I think could use a little more scrutiny.

Alyssa Mastromonico
There's, you know what it reminds me of? There was like this scene from the movie how to lose a guy in ten days when Kate Hudson's like, I love you, but I don't like you right now. And I felt like that's Trump with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, I think that's right. But to make it very clear that I love you. And just he, like, he felt. Trump is not someone who feels a need often to say nice things about people, especially when they've done him wrong, and he does it for her. And it's just. It's notable, I'd say.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I agree.

Dan Pfeiffer
Okay. Finally, independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy junior disclosed that he believes that in 2010, a worm entered his skull and ate a portion of his brain.

Yes, you heard that right. The anti vaccine conspiracy theory peddling candidate claims to have had a literal brainworm, frankly, a plot twist we all should have seen coming in this campaign.

And in case you doubt this story, RFK junior went on Ari Melbourne show on MSNBC to put to rest any and all doubts that he is, in fact, operating on a diminished brain. Here he is talking about pardoning January 6 rioters.

Ari Melbourne
President Trump said, right, but the question is about those pardons.

Would you be open with that or not?

What do you mean? I'm not. Listen, I'm an attorney. I was a prosecutor. You were, I think, a legal aid attorney.

I was a prosecutor. I would never say in advance of running for political office who I'm gonna pardon, but that's what he's doing. And you're running against him. And I'm asking you as a journalist where you stand on that. That's their case. I'm not gonna do that. So that will sound to people like, you're leaving that door open. You don't need to.

Do you wanna leave that door open? I'm surprised. Open or close, I'm not answering it until I look at people's cases.

Dan Pfeiffer
Alyssa, I'm not even really sure what to ask about this, but does the brain worm story kind of explain everything you need to know about RFK Junior?

Alyssa Mastromonico
It's not just the brain worm. There was more to the story that I feel is not being adequately covered. May I read from the news?

Dan Pfeiffer
Please, please, please.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Okay.

Quote about the same time he learned of the parasite, he said he also was diagnosed with mercury poisoning, most likely from ingesting too much fish containing the dangerous heavy metal, which can cause serious neurological issues.

Dan. He had a brain worm and mercury poisoning. And according to doctors who have treated parasitic infections and mercury poisoning, said both conditions can sometimes permanently damage brain function. So the thing I'd like to point out here.

Dan, please.

Dan Pfeiffer
No. I waited with bated breath to see what comes next here.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Thank you. In around 2010, sometime between 2010 2014, there was a study done.

Harvard Business Review got into it, and it was about how when there is a job and qualifications are listed, men will look at the job qualifications and be like, if they hit 50, 60%, they're like, okay, I'm good. Women take qualifications as actual qualifications and want to hit 100% before they throw their hat in the ring.

Dan Pfeiffer
Dan, this. I believe it all checks out. I'm waiting to see how this ties to the brain worms.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Sheryl Samberg got into it with lean in.

All of these publications have written about it.

Dan, only a man with a brain worm would be like, you know what? I have a brain worm, and I think the next best thing for me to do is run for president of the United States. Dan, how many. How many states has he made it on the ballot? Like five?

Dan Pfeiffer
That's a good question. There's a bunch of states where he claims to have reached the requisite numbers of signatures, but those signatures have not been through the full process yet.

So I don't know the exact number, but I am operating under the assumption.

Alyssa Mastromonico
He'S on some ballots.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah, I'm operating. We should operate on the assumption that he is going to be on the ballot in all of the major swing states.

Alyssa Mastromonico
So I just wanted to use this moment of brain worms and mercury poisoning to tell women, please run for office. You're good.

Dan Pfeiffer
I mean, I just.

When we talk about the fate of democracy and the fragility of our political system, it really does come down to the fact that the future of our country, the future of democracy, the balance of world power, is going to really boil down to the number of votes received by a guy with the famous last name who had a brain worm and believes every conspiracy under the sun.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Yeah, that.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right. That, like, that's where we are.

Jon Lovett
Mm hmm.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Right.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Just.

Alyssa Mastromonico
What a and who, if he had been president during COVID would not have gotten a vaccination approved for us.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah. Donald Trump actually, today has been truthing. And I think also, I don't. I don't fully know what was the format for all these video clips I keep seeing of Donald Trump standing in front of a podium, just saying a bunch of random things, but he. He attacked RFK junior today. Not on the brain worm, but he caught him a fake anti vaxxer. Because I think Trump is becoming concerned with perhaps some good reason that RFK junior may be cutting into both with his brainworm and his anti vax views into Trump's base. So just. That's.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I really had to break that down. I was like, fake anti vaxxer. What does that mean? Oh, okay, I get it now.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yeah.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I think he's not anti vaxxer enough.

Dan Pfeiffer
Yes, he is. He may. He's lying about his anti vax views. I think it's what he's saying. But there's a lot of double negatives in there. Okay, one quick thing before we go to break. If you're listening to this, you already know the stakes of the 2024 election, and I know you want to make a difference. Vote save. America's organizer else campaign is here. If you remember our programs from 2020 and 2022, we divided into teams, first by state, then by region. This year, we're taking it up a notch. It's the classic rap battle of east versus west. Alyssa, have you picked a team?

Alyssa Mastromonico
East. East. Come on.

Dan Pfeiffer
You joined with me and Tommy on the east team.

Alyssa Mastromonico
I have to be east.

Dan Pfeiffer
Okay, perfect. Well, welcome. You're. You are you. You chose the right side. Organizer else will connect you with opportunities that work for you and your preferences and schedule, working to help races up and down the ballot. VSA will track each team's calls, text, door knocks, shifts, and at the end, the highest achieving team could win the biggest prize of all. Yes. They want me to.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Democracy.

Dan Pfeiffer
Continuing democracy. You know what I have to tell you. Losing team will also get that we may have failed to gamify.

It's a win win for you, for democracy, for for everyone. Go to ww dot votesafamerica.com 2024 to get started.

This message has been paid for by Votesave America. You can learn more at votesave america.com dot. This ad has not been authorized by any candidate or candidates committee. When we come back, FTC chair Lena Khan.

Doctor Horton
Your new beginning starts now. Doctor Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces and smart home technology, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, Doctor Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn more@drhorton.com Dot Doctor Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.

Ari Melbourne
Hey everyone, it's Ted from consumer cellular, the guy in the orange sweater. And this is your wake up call. If you're paying too much for wireless service, you don't have to keep having that nightmare. Consumercellular has the same fast, reliable coverage as the leading carriers for up to half the cost. So why keep spending more than you have to? Seriously wake up and call 1888 Freedom or visit consumer site cellular.com savings based.

Alyssa Mastromonico
On cost of consumer cellular single line, 15 and ten gig data plans with unlimited talk and text compared to lowest cost single line postpaid unlimited talk, text and data plans offered by T Mobile and Verizon January 2024.

Angie's list is now Angie and we've heard a lot of theories about why. I thought it was an eco move.

Dan Pfeiffer
Fewer, worse, less paper.

Jon Lovett
No, it was so you could say it faster.

Simplisafe Home security
No, it's to be more iconic.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Must be a tech thing. But those are quite right. It's because now you can compare upfront prices, book a service instantly, and even get your project handled from start to finish. Sounds easy. It is. And it makes us so much more than just a list. Get started@angie.com. That's a n G I or download the app today.

Jon Lovett
Joining us now, the chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, taking on corporate monopolies and anti consumer practices, making a bunch of enemies and friends along the way, Lena Khan, welcome to the pod.

Lena Khan
Great to be here.

Jon Lovett
So you've led an FTC that has been far more willing to go after corporate consolidation. Anti competitive practices brought dozens of actions against mergers. It's also brought you relentless criticism from old school, pro business, anti regulation conservatives. Literally. Moments ago, another piece in the Wall Street Journal described your leadership as FTC's failed experiment yet among some republicans, especially those who have embraced kind of trumpy populism, you've been getting a lot of praise. Matt Gaetz, whose endorsement anyone would covet, likes what you're doing. Senator JD Vance said, you're one of the few people in the Biden administration doing a pretty good job.

How do you explain that divide amongst conservatives?

Lena Khan
It's a great question, and it really goes back to the origins of anti monopoly law and the anti monopoly tradition which really emerged around the founding. And there was a clear recognition that in the same ways that concentration of political power threatens core liberties and is anathema to the idea of a democracy, that you similarly needed checks and balances against economic power and economic concentration, because a society in which people are getting coerced and bullied in their economic transactions is one where people are not going to feel free in a fundamental way. And there has long been recognition across the political aisle on both sides that monopoly power threatens these core liberties. I think for conservatives, there's a tradition of recognizing how overarching state power can threaten liberty. And again, they are recalling how in some instances, when you concentrate corporate power, it can, too, threaten liberties. And so that's where we see some of those core alignments.

Jon Lovett
So one of the things you've been going up against, you've had several big wins when you've brought suit against mergers, but you've also had some defeats, is you're taking on a conception of how antitrust law is supposed to work that has held sway for a number of decades. Kind of a conservative theory about when it's appropriate to go after a monopoly.

Can you talk just a little bit about what you're trying to do with, say, a case like Activision Blizzard and what you're seeing that you don't think the courts are seeing?

Lena Khan
Happy to. And, you know, it's important just to step back and recall how we got here. So at the end of President Obama's term, we began to see a growing concern about concentrated power and a lack of competition in the economy. And President Obama actually issued an executive order late in his tenure that was directing agencies to identify ways to promote competition. And it didn't get a lot of notice at the time, but it was a really important precursor to the historic executive order on competition that President Biden then issued the summer after he took office. And that executive order basically acknowledged that for the last 40 years, the way we've been doing antitrust and the way we've been doing competition policy really got it wrong. And as a result, we see consolidation across our economy, across sectors, in ways that is really hurting the american public. Right. Consumers are paying too much. All too often, they don't have enough choice.

Workers wages have been declining and haven't kept up. Small businesses and entrepreneurs have been getting locked out of the market. And so President Biden issued a very clear directive to turn the page. And the shift we've been seeing in antitrust is part and parcel of a broader reorientation across economic policymaking, where this administration has been shutting the door on a failed approach of trickle down economics. And the shift we're seeing in antitrust is part and parcel of that. It's really motivated by and responding to just the basic reality. The competition has not kept up. We've instead seen more and more consolidation. And as a result of that, people are hurting. It means that people are having to drive hundreds of miles to go to the nearest hospital as opposed to tens of miles, because after hospitals merge, they oftentimes close local facilities.

All too often, people can't afford life saving medicines because of all sorts of patent tricks the big pharma companies are undertaking.

And just sector after sector, you see the same basic dynamic. And so that's where both the public will for this shift is coming from.

Jon Lovett
But so this is what I'm trying to understand. So what you just described is a mix of all kinds of ways in which these kind of mergers can hurt people. Right.

There's efficiencies, what they would call.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right.

Jon Lovett
And so they close a hospital here and they run a much bigger hospital here.

Some of these hurt individuals.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right.

Jon Lovett
They hurt consumers. So what I'm trying to understand is, are there cases where you believe this conservative idea that all that matters is consumer prices is not being applied fairly? Or are you saying, is it that, like, the law needs to be applied in a different way, that how it impacts an individual consumer, how their prices are affected isn't the only thing that should be looked at.

Lena Khan
So the law that Congress passed says we need to protect competition and we need to prevent undermining of competition or undermining of fair methods of competition. And there's a basic question about how do you measure competition?

Companies can compete overprice. Right. They can try to lower the price and provide you a better deal. But that's not the only dimension on which companies compete. And especially as we see markets evolve as digital services have come online, there are additional dimensions of competition that we need to take into account, including, for example, privacy.

Oftentimes, people are not paying with dollars for a lot of these services, they're paying with their data. And so competing on privacy is an important dimension that we need to take into account. Companies also compete on dimensions like innovation, which oftentimes is something that happens over the long term rather than short term price effects. And look, the ironic thing is that even over the last 40 years, if you want to say that the focus was on short term price effects, there is a wealth of evidence and scholarship that shows that even on those metrics, antitrust has not kept up. The prices in all of these areas have much higher than they should have been without some of these mergers going through. And so you could say this paradigm has failed on its own terms and that the shift we're doing is now just responding to the realities that you see in the marketplace.

Jon Lovett
Yeah, that's sort of what I was getting at, because you've recently brought an action against this merger between Albertsons and Kroger.

And as it seems to be the case, every time the two companies trying to merge say this will be a huge benefit to consumers, and the FTC says no. When these companies merge, the consolidation will mean they get efficiencies, but they won't pass the savings onto customers. They'll reap more profits and even could be in a position to raise prices. How do you litigate that question when it's all in the future?

Lena Khan
It's one of the hardest parts of the antitrust regime, where you're having to predict what's going to happen when mergers go through. And it's why Congress said the agencies don't have to predict that with entire certainty. But it's really based on a whole set of different types of evidence.

This case in particular is still being litigated. So I'm limited in what I can say about it, but the complaint lays out how there's been decades of consolidation in the grocery sector that consumers have lost out. And our complaint alleges that in this instance, workers would also lose out if this deal goes through. And so you look at, you know, what are the company's documents telling you? And at the end of the day, what incentivizes companies to pass on benefits to consumers is if they're actually having to jostle with one another. Right? If they're afraid that if they don't deliver you those benefits, they're actually going to lose business to their rivals. If you allow them to buy that rival up, there isn't going to be that same incentive to give you the better deal.

Jon Lovett
There are also a ton of examples where companies that want to merge, in particular, because their executives will reap an enormous personal benefit from a merger. They make all kinds of claims about how it's going to benefit consumers. Those benefits never materialize. Do you believe the government should be more active after a merger has potentially gone through to make sure that they're honoring their commitments that they made when they were trying to get the merger approved?

Lena Khan
Absolutely. I mean, if firms are making certain commitments or promises about why they're merging and the benefits that are going to be delivered, and then they go through with the merger, and actually then to do the exact opposite, which, unfortunately, is something we see all too often, be it, you know, commitments about how they're going to be hiring more people, only for them to go ahead and fire people. Commitments about how they're going to be honoring people's privacy, only for them to go ahead and then renege on privacy commitments.

That's absolutely a problem. And that's actually why under the Biden administration, the FTC has been much more skeptical of some of these types of promises and settlements. Because if you are structurally allowing a merger to eliminate competition in a way that will allow that company to harm people, them just signing a piece of paper that says we promise not to harm people is not really enough. If they're not going to have the incentives in the market to make sure people are still getting a better deal.

Jon Lovett
Are there examples, and I would doubt you could say what they are, but are there examples that you see without naming them, where you think it might be valuable for the government to go back and say, to look at those mergers and say, wait, these were approved under false pretenses and potentially should be unwound?

Lena Khan
Absolutely. There are a whole bunch of examples where, in hindsight, certain mergers that were allowed to go through seem to have been a mistake in terms of the merger ended up resulting in consumers getting a worse deal, workers being worse off, and the market as a whole being much more consolidated and much more closed off so that entrepreneurs and small businesses can't enter? Just to give an example, we hear a lot of concerns in the ticketing industry. This is one that's in the justice department's wheelhouse, not ours. You hear concerns from consumers, right. Anybody who's tried to buy a ticket online has experienced just how infuriating that experience can be, where the company can seem like it's too big to care. You've also heard a lot of concerns from artists and from, you know, concert venues about how they sometimes are getting bullied or coerced in the marketplace, because now you have a single dominant entity that's able to dictate terms. So we see concerns there, but we see concerns in the airline industry and the telecom industry, across the healthcare sector, where all too often after you see, you know, dominant firms grow through consolidation. They don't have to work as hard to get people's business.

Jon Lovett
But legally, could the government come back and say, we are going to take a look at this and see if it should be unwound? Or is that once it's done, it's done?

Lena Khan
Absolutely. The government has the ability to say these mergers went through, but in hindsight, we believe they were illegal. And one of the cases that the FTC is currently litigating makes exactly this argument. The Facebook case that was filed actually in the, during the tail end of the Trump administration alleges that Facebook's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp were actually illegal, and they allowed Facebook to illegally maintain its monopoly rather than have to compete. And the remedy that's being sought includes divestiture, which would mean they'd have to sell those entities off.

Jon Lovett
Right. But those companies, then, after merger is complete, very quickly get to trying to get things pretty entangled so that they have an argument that it can't be undone. Right.

Lena Khan
Sometimes they make those arguments, and that's ultimately for a court to decide.

Jon Lovett
So one thing that came up recently is the FTC banning non compete agreements. Look, I am somebody relying on producers to make this podcast every day, and I don't think they should be able to work anywhere else.

What are we going to do about that? You've really made our jobs harder. We're really trying to lock them in.

Lena Khan
Unfortunately, too many employers have had that attitude. Right? I mean, non compete started off in the boardroom, but they've proliferated across our economy. So you have janitors, security guards, fast food workers, but also doctors, healthcare workers, across the board, engineers, tech workers, that all too often are governed by a non compete, which means that they cannot easily switch jobs, they can't easily start their own business if it involves competing with their former employer. And after the FTC put out this proposal last year, we got over 26,000 comments, 25,000 of those were in support of the proposal. And we heard just devastating stories about how non competes had forced people to stay locked into abusive jobs, had forced people to uproot their lives and their families. We heard from doctors who had been serving rural America about how a non compete means that if you want to switch employers, you have to leave the state entirely and abandon your patients, which can be contributing to a lack of healthcare being available in parts of the country. And so these are systemic problems that we've seen. And we were really pleased to recently be able to finalize a rule that would end non competes in employment contracts.

Jon Lovett
This is about people, about competition, and in the FTC's press release, make a lot of arguments around how many new businesses it could produce, how much increased earnings it could result in.

You also spoke recently about what happened after the Nvidia arm merger was called off, in part because FTC tried to block it.

There is this idea that an active FTC, or that an aggressive FTC that's trying to protect competition is anti business.

Can you talk a little bit about just about why that's wrong?

Lena Khan
Yeah, that couldn't be further from the truth, right? I mean, the FTC's mandate is to promote open, fair, and competitive markets where people can get a fair shake. And that includes consumers, it includes workers, but it also includes businesses.

Dan Pfeiffer
Right?

Lena Khan
I mean, if you're a business, if you're an entrepreneur and you have a good idea, you're able to get financing for that idea. What you want is to be able to enter the market and really compete and be able to get a foothold. And unfortunately, all too often we hear that startups and entrepreneurs and small businesses are not able to get a fair shake, and they're actually being squeezed out of the market, not because customers don't like them, but because they're being muscled out by one of the existing monopolists. And so we hear a lot of concern from everyone, ranging from, you know, independent pharmacists and independent grocers, who all too often are being squeezed out by the big players or because they're not getting a fair shake? We hear a lot of concern from startups and founders and entrepreneurs, including in Silicon Valley, about how all too often the fate of their business is not a function of how popular their service is, but instead is a function of the whims of one of the existing giants that is controlling access to who can reach customers and who can get through the market. And so these are fundamentally issues that hurt all businesses, except unless whenever you're one of the monopolists that is benefiting from, you know, your status and incumbent, and you can lock out everybody else.

Jon Lovett
Speaking of incumbents, so you were on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart mentioned that Apple told him not to interview you for his podcast. The problem with Jon Stewart, were you surprised by that? Do you have any theory about why that might be.

Lena Khan
You know, I think historically we've seen that when companies amass a lot of power, and especially when they amass a lot of power over who gets to be heard, who gets to be seen, who gets to speak in the kind of, you know, marketplace of ideas, that they can use that power in abusive ways, that they can use that power to kind of pick winners and losers and that that doesn't serve our democratic society right. I mean, if we believe in the First Amendment, if we believe in helping a healthy marketplace of ideas, a clear precondition of that is making sure that you have a marketplace where many voices can get heard. And so the concentration of power can be really hostile to those basic ideals.

Jon Lovett
So I was thinking about, you know, your case against Amazon and your effort to take on these gigantic companies that have amassed so much power in our society. And I was trying to understand what, to your mind, success looks like that is success simply attacking the most egregious examples of corporate consolidation? Or do you believe it's possible for us to actually kind of build something that has much more competition, much fewer industries controlled by two, three, four firms, if you're lucky? Or is the best we can do at this point, trying to mitigate the damage done by 40 years of monopolistic and anti consumer practices?

Lena Khan
It's an important question, and I think there's a short term component of this, but also a long term. And over the long term, there's no doubt that we have to be aiming for ensuring that our markets are open and fair and competitive.

But I think just to step back, a deeper issue that we see right now is the government reasserting itself on behalf of working families and making very clear that the government will stick up for working families, including when they're being pushed around or abused by law breaking corporations.

And I think that at a very basic level is so essential because all too often we see that people can get disillusioned with government if they feel that in their day to day lives, they're not able to afford their medicines, they're not able to easily switch jobs, and that their fate ultimately is controlled by these distant giants. And it really contributes to people feeling a lack of power and a lack of autonomy over their lives. The government coming in and saying, this is not an inevitability, right. We can actually fight back against these law breaking corporations and make sure that our economy is one that's actually serving the american people is an incredibly important shift, and it's one that we're seeing across the administration. Right now. And so I hope you know, we want to win the cases we're bringing. We're really pleased with the wins we've already had, including, you know, our actions resulting in inhaler manufacturers dropping the price that Americans will have to pay from hundreds of dollars down to just $35. But at a deeper level, it's really important that the public see what it means for government to be fighting for them.

Jon Lovett
Lena Khan, thank you so much for your time.

Lena Khan
Thanks for having me.

Dan Pfeiffer
Thanks. Alina Khan thanks to Alyssa for co hosting with me today. We'll talk to you all on Tuesday.

Alyssa Mastromonico
Bye everyone.

Simplisafe Home security
If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our friends of the Pod subscription community@crooked.com. Friends and if you're already doom scrolling, don't forget to follow us at Pod Save America on Instagram, Twitter and YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content, and more. Plus, if you're as opinionated as we are, consider dropping us a review. Pod Save America is a crooked media production. Our show is produced by Olivia Martin and David Toledo. Our associate producers are Saul Rubin and Farah Safari. Kira Joachim is our senior producer. Reed Shurlin is our executive producer. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis writing support by Hallie Kiefer. Madeline Herringer is our head of news and programming. Matt de Grote is our head of production. Andy Taft is our executive assistant. Thanks to our digital team, Elijah Cohn, Hayley Jones, Mia Kellman, David Toles, Kirill Pallaviv, and Molly lobel.

Doctor Horton
Your new beginning starts now. Doctor Horton has new construction homes available in Ellensburg and throughout the greater Seattle area. With spacious floor plans, flexible living spaces and smart home technology, you can enjoy more cozy moments and sweet memories in your beautiful new home. With new home communities opening in Ellensburg and throughout the Seattle area, Dr. Horton has the ideal home for you. Learn more at Dr. Horton.com. Doctor Horton, America's builder and equal housing opportunity builder.

Alyssa Mastromonico
You can start your day off right when you find a professional on Angie to get your plumbing right. First, connect with skilled professionals to get all your home projects done well, visit angie.com dot. You can do this when you angie that.

Did a Worm Really Eat RFK Jr.'s Brain?

Primary Topic

Episode Summary

Main Takeaways

Episode Chapters

1: Introduction

2: Stormy Daniels Trial

3: Biden's Political Strategies

4: The Brain Worm Allegation

5: Media Influence on Politics

Actionable Advice

About This Episode

People

Companies

Books

Guest Name(s):

Content Warnings:

Transcript