What are the guiding principles of the Trump 2.0 antitrust policy and how do they differ from Trump 1.0 or from Biden?

Well, I alluded to two of them already as they relate to deals.

So like the settlement piece or determination, I would call those more tactics.

And I think your question is what's the big picture strategy here? And so with the time that we have, I wanted to unpack and explain a a philosophy theory that is driving a lot of this administration's decision making.

And it's not just limited to antitrust.

And for the FedTalk members who are listening to this, apologies in advance, because this is well-worn terrain for them.

However, it's not well-worn terrain for everybody.

And to turn the question slightly from policy to practice, how do you think AI is going to impact either the practice of antitrust enforcement or just the practice of antitrust law more broadly?

So my questions are, is there a tension between these positions? Do you think generally antitrust agencies should stick to their historic lanes? And if it's appropriate to challenge viewpoint discrimination, does that risk a broader expansion of what antitrust agencies do or are expected to do?

So I think the first building block there, an obvious point to make, is the consumer welfare standard is the law and it's the precedent.

And so, you know, in the U.S., we were given these framework statutes and told to go color between the lines.

And we evolved into the consumer welfare standard, which is not in the statutes, but it is the precedent.

And so within that, we have... different variables, different dimensions of competition that matter.

And so that's within the precedent, you know, there's not to innovation, to output, to quality competition, to price.

One thing that, because I did spend a decent amount of time at an agency, and curious if you agree with this or not from a European standpoint, but one thing that I think is safe to say and a point of agreement is that from an agency practice standpoint, so separate from the court precedent and litigated cases, there is a very, very strong deference given only to price effects as a dimension of competition that matters under the consumer welfare standard to the point where often as a matter of prosecutorial discretion, the antitrust agencies were afraid to or didn't want to bring cases absent Very, very compelling evidence of price effects.

Can you tell us about that experience, how it shaped your views, and how it prepared you for overseeing the hundreds of lawyers and economists at the Department of Justice and Trust Division?

Uh, are you a stumbling bl- Is the Antitrust Division an, a stumbling b-block for that or can actually help increase productivity, competition, growth, jobs, wages, et cetera, ma'am?

100%.

100%.

And, and it's, it's great to be able to talk to people with your knowledge and to the War Room posse about this.

So, a lot of people think of us as regulators.

We're not.

We're, we're law enforcers.

How do you guys look at the world and how do you divide things up?

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Today we are proud to announce a big step in keeping our rental housing markets fair and competitive.

This Department of Justice has taken a major step in lowering the cost of rent in a settlement with RealPage.

Our settlement, combined with prior settlements with some landlords, is as good as any relief we would get from a court order after a lengthy and expensive trial.

And importantly, it brings that relief to American consumers now, not three years from now.

RealPage is an algorithmic pricing system that many large landlords use to coordinate rental prices instead of competing for tenants.

Landlords fed their co- confidential data into a shared algorithm that generated daily rent recommendations.

What was this, what was this? It was actually a computer that set the price that was not a fair market price?

Listen to Big Kick Energy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Today, we are proud to announce a big step in keeping our rental housing markets fair and competitive.

This Department of Justice has taken a major step in lowering the cost of rent in a settlement with RealPage.

Our settlement, combined with prior settlements with some landlords, is as good as any relief we would get from a court order after a lengthy and expensive trial.

And importantly, it brings that relief to American consumers now, not three years from now.

RealPage is an algorithmic pricing system that many large landlords use to coordinate rental prices instead of competing for tenants.

Landlords fed their confidential data into a shared algorithm that generated daily rent recommendations.

What was this? It was actually a computer that set the price that was not a fair market price?

Is that where they're rigging the price of the tickets?

Well, so we've got a number of different allegations in that case.

To- today's case is a criminal case, so different than our civil case against Live Nation, and it's against one individual, a guy named Tim Leiweke.

I don't know if you're familiar with him, Steve.

So, he's the, was until recently the CEO of Oakview, which is one of these groups, right, that ti- that bids for this business.

And so it's a, it's a bid-rigging case.

Um, we also have non-prosecution ca- uh, agreements already in place, uh, with Oakview Group and with Legends, which would have been the competitor bidding for that business.

Yeah.