Lauren Feiner

Is that something that they can achieve?

Let's talk about that for a second.

So assuming the states stay in it, assuming that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are still as unsympathetic to a jury as I think everyone has always assumed they would be, and the states win, what does a realistic outcome look like?

What are the states hoping to get?

What happens if, I don't know, Texas decides to settle and New York and California win?

Does Ticketmaster face different regulation in different states or will it be a national outcome?

We have to take another quick break.

We'll be back in just a minute.

We're back with Verge senior policy reporter Lauren Feiner.

We just discussed how the states are continuing their case against Live Nation with the hopes of achieving a breakup of Live Nation and Ticketmaster.

Now I want to talk about what might happen next and broadly about antitrust policy in this, the second Trump administration, which seems to have proven that it has no interest in blocking mergers, breaking up big companies, or acting as a check on corporate power.

This case feels like a pretty good test of whether the states can step up in the absence of Trump federal law enforcement.

You have whatever is going on with our Department of Justice and our Federal Trade Commission.

How are they going to operate their divisions?

And then you have a bunch of states who are more active, who are pushing harder on a number of cases than maybe the federal government is.

Are we seeing that dynamic equalize?

Is that something that's going to last a long time?

Can they be effective in trying to fill that gap?

Or is this sort of a temporary Trump blip?

Yeah, I feel like the political incentive to go after Ticketmaster is high.