Lauren Feiner

People are taking a stand, and then it settles.

The DOJ settles.

The states decide to keep going, but the DOJ settles.

You wrote a piece about that settlement, just a straightforward headline.

The Live Nation Settlement Has Industry Insiders Baffled.

You talked to a whole bunch of people about that settlement in the industry, around the industry.

Explain why the reaction was bafflement.

There's a lot of reporting that Donald Trump personally was involved in the settlement.

Ari Emanuel, who used to be a board member at Live Nation, called Trump and personally asked him to intervene.

There's reporting from Wall Street Journal that says Trump was just walking around saying, why isn't this settled yet?

How much Donald Trump is in the settlement?

Until the DOJ settled, this case felt like a win no matter what your politics were.

Like no one likes Ticketmaster.

I feel like specifically after the Arras tour disaster and artists starting to complain pretty widely about Ticketmaster and so many starting to complain, the idea that antitrust enforcement was bipartisan was on the rise.

There were some conservatives who were really excited about antitrust enforcement.

You have Andrew Ferguson, who's the head of the Federal Trade Commission, who makes antitrust noises all the time.

He replaced Lena Kahn.

J.D.

Vance was at events that you've covered for us where he said he actually liked Lena Kahn.

She was the only member of the Biden administration that he liked and thought was doing a good job because she was trying to preserve competition.