Jon Stewart is joined by FTC Chair Lina Khan, author Salman Rushdie, and ESPN reporter Monica McNutt to discuss some of the biggest topics of 2024, including antitrust suits against Amazon, the fight for free speech on college campuses, and how Caitlin Clark's entrance affected the WNBA.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: What is the main focus of the FTC in 2024?
I mean, you know, if they have monopoly money, they can buy as many lawyers as they want. I mean, the FTC is around twelve hundred employees. But when we're going up against some of these monopolistic companies, they can outmatch us, outgun us, sometimes one to ten. Just if you're looking at lawyers, if you're adding paralegals and support.
If you're just looking at lawyers, they outnumber you ten to one.
Sometimes they can, yeah. I mean, we have lawsuits against a whole bunch of big companies. And just in terms of sheer resources that they can pour into the litigation, we're pretty outgunned, but not outmatched, right? And this is where it comes to playing to your strengths, being entrepreneurial.
So this isn't about just getting a fine. This isn't about going after Amazon and saying, so, because this is what the SEC does. The SEC, I think, is overmatched as a government agency. And you don't have to comment on that, but just nod your head. utterly overmatched. So they go after groups, and then they can't really prove it in court. So then they're like, how about this?
You give us a cut of your profit, and we'll all be done here. How do you handle that with Amazon? It's not just about a fine.
That's right. I think we've seen, look, over the last couple of decades, we've seen how businesses can treat fines just as a cost of doing business. Right. And we need to make sure that we're actually deterring illegal behavior. And so that can mean naming individual executives. Oh, snap.
You just did not go there. I like that. So have you had success with this?
We have had success with this. I mean, we had a lawsuit against Martin Shkreli a couple of years ago.
Oh, it suddenly turned into a pro wrestling match here. What's going on? And he went to jail. Do you have to refer things to the DOJ or do you have an enforcement arm?
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Chapter 2: How does the FTC handle monopolistic practices?
So we have a lawsuit against Amazon. We have another one against Facebook.
What is the one against Facebook?
So that one was filed before I arrived at the agency, but basically it alleges that Facebook, when it was watching the transition from desktop to mobile,
IT REALIZED IT REALLY COULDN'T SURVIVE IN MOBILE, AND SO IT ENDED UP BUYING OUT INSTAGRAM AND WHATSAPP, AND THE LAWSUIT ALLEGES THAT THOSE ACQUISITIONS WERE ANTICOMPETITIVE, THAT THEY VIOLATED THE ANTITRUST LAWS, THAT INSTEAD OF COMPETING ORGANICALLY, FACEBOOK INSTEAD BOUGHT ITS WAY TO MAINTAINING ITS MONOPOLY.
NOW, WHY IS THAT CONSIDERED MONOPOLY? WOULDN'T THEY SAY, WELL, THAT'S A SIGN OF OUR SUCCESS? WE'RE SO SUCCESSFUL, WE HAVE EXTRA MONEY, AND WITH THAT EXTRA MONEY, WE MAKE BETS ON CERTAIN COMPANIES, AND WE TURN THOSE INTO SUCCESSES.
So look, one key tenet of the anti-monopoly laws is that you can't go out and buy one of your biggest competitors.
Oh, you're not allowed to do that.
You're not allowed to do that, in fact.
Can I tell you something crazy? So I had put in an offer for last week tonight. I had come out. Now, it wasn't... And I'm going to tell you something. And because it's Oliver, I offered to him in doubloons. Is that what British people use? Obviously, I didn't take it. But you have to make the decision, then, of whether or not they are cornering the market.
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