We have been talking on Bloomberg Law about President elect Trump's effect on the Supreme Court going forward, but his effect, of course, is going to be felt throughout the federal government, and one place he has expressed concerns, although he has not really set forth what his policy preferences are is in the area of anti trust enforcement. He hasn't explicitly said what he's going to do or been his detailed
about it as his opponent Hillary Clinton had been. But he has criticized the proposed A T and T and Time Warner merger and other has made some remarks that have had some implications for anti trust. He's been suited in the past about anti trust, but no one really knows exactly what he's going to do with us here today to talk about what President elect Trump might do in the anti trust area is Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Jennifer Ree. Jennifer, Welcome to the program. Hi, how are you? Thank you
for having me. So what do we know so far about what President elect Trump might do in the anti trust area? Well, you know, I think that you just described of it, and the best term that I've heard is that he's really a wild card. Um typically a Republican administration is friendly to businesses and would be a good thing for antitrust in easing the review on mergers and and easing you know, opening of investigations and that
sort of thing. But here, as you mentioned, the few statements that UM Donald Trump has made about anti trust has been to criticize consolidation and UM particularly consolidation amongst large media companies and and too much control in the hands of one entity, which is what he said about
Amazon and Jeff Bezos. So you know, you have both sides of the coin, a business owner and a Republican UM, but who is not traditional, not a traditional Republican who has to the extent he's expressed anything, it has been some indication to actually be a vigorous enforcer. Jennifer Scregg store, um, tell us a little bit about Donald Trump's experience with antitrust law as a business man, and might that give us some ideas about what he would do as president.
You know, first, a lot of those experiences were quite a long time ago, in the nineteen eighties, and he has been both a plaintiff and a defendant in the anti trust matters. So it's clear that he knows the anti drust laws and how they work and what kind of an effect they can have. And he's also already used them as a tool, given that he's been a
plaintiff and he's had some success, um minimal success. He as an owner of the USFL in the nineteen eighties, for example, he sued the NFL for monopolization and ultimately the jury agreed with him and decided that the NFL was a monopolist in violation of the anti trust laws, but had decided that the difficulty that the USFL was having was due to mismanagement and not the NFL's monopolistic conduct,
so they only awarded a dollar in that case. UM. He also had been sued I think in the past related to some of his dealings in Atlantic City, UM, in which he was accused of conspiring to try to push out competitors. I think he had some success. That was where he was a defendant, and he had some success with that suit as well. What do we know, Jennifer about what kind of impact president like Trump will
have once he's in office on the Federal Trade Commission. Well, I I think that's where his biggest impact will be for right now, I mean of course he'll be able to appoint um appoint officials to the Department of Justice
as well. But right now the Federal Trade Commission, which normally has five commissioners, is operating with three, So right off the bat he has two slots to fill UM and I think the current chairman, Edith Ramirez, will likely leave because her term actually already expired in September, and
she is a Democrat. And the way that commission is set up, of the five commissioners, no more than three can be of one political party, so you will always either have three Republicans and two two Democrats and vice versa. And during a democratic administration, you would normally have three Democrats. So in this case, with these openings and his ability to appoint, we're likely going to flip from what we up now with a majority two Democrats one Republican, to
three Republicans and two Democrats, giving Republicans the majority. And the reason that can have importance is because when the FTC makes a decision to take an action, it requires a vote, and it must be a majority vote. So um, where you have the three Republicans, if the commissioners vote along party lines, then there may be less of a likelihood, to let's sake, go to court to seek to block
a deal, Jennifer. For me, at least when Donald Trump was was criticizing consolidation, particularly in the media industry, it was sometimes hard to distinguish whether he was talking about his claim that the election was being rigged or whether there was something more more antitrust focused about his comments. Um, do you think it's fair to at least speculate that he might want to treat consolidation in the media industry differently than he might in the drug industry or or
some other business. I think that's absolutely fair. You know, everything that he's talked about in terms of anti trust has been targeted at media companies, and I know he had he had a lot of anger um with the media during the election, and it wouldn't surprise me if I guess in a way it would be to use the anti trust as a tool to get back at
you know, what he considers his enemies. Jennifer. We you know, we're going to have to do a little bit of crystal ball here, but there's been One of his most prominent supporters was Rudy Giuliani, who served in the Justice Department in the Reagan administration, which was some time ago, and Rudy's political views seemed to have changed a bit over time. But is there some possibility to say if Rudy gets appointed as Attorney General that we might see
a more Reagan Esque approach to anti trust? You know, I would think that would be the case. And even if it wasn't Rudy Giuliani, it was sort of a more to what you think of as a more traditional or Reagan type Republican who was Um appointed to some of these positions, both FTC and d o J. Because, as I said, the more traditional Republican position has been to be uh more hands off, have a lighter hand
on the anti trust and more friendly to business. And if he's going to appoint people like that who are going to you know, follow through with that position, then you would think overall things might get a little bit easier on the anti trust enforcement than they have been in the last two years. There's a real tension here, isn't there you know, kind of the who is the real Donald Trump or what Donald Trumper are we going
to see? On one hand, there is Rudy Giuliani. On the other hand, Um you know, Trump's message with so much of a populist message that one might perceive that he has somebody who wants to go after big companies, break them up, or at least prevent them from from merging. I I agree. I think it's really um you know, I think those comments were really tough because they seem
more like the comments of a Democrat. Mean, I think I even wrote this up that what he was saying was aligned with exactly what Senator Elizabeth Warren was saying at the same time that she had a real issue with the amount of control and power that some of these some of the tech companies had, like Amazon and
Google and companies like that. And so it's very odd here where he when he takes on that populous message, he's aligning himself with with the more typical democratic position, uh, but in a situation where he's more likely to appoint decision makers in the area who have a more traditional
Republican position. So so it's a very strange situation. So we could end up though, in a situation anti trust as a place where we could end up not only with some battles, say between the appointees and the president. If as your seemed to be implying. But also this is a place where the president can really um affect a lot of policy changes in the economic sphere, isn't it,
you know? I I think so. It depends on who he appoints, you know, under the anti trust laws and the way these things work, especially with merger review, the president really can't do anything to stop a deal that the d O j r FTC has decided is not anti competitive or shouldn't be blocked, you know, if they go forward with the deal, even with his objection, that's how it goes. The President doesn't have the authority to try to stop the deal or otherwise block the deal.
Did you need a court order to do that, and the president can't take it into court either. So in my mind, it really has to do more with the people he puts in place to make these these these decisions then actually his own position, and if there's tension that could cause problems. Jennifer, let me just before we close in very quickly ask you do you think the A T and T Time Warner deals in trouble now? I think I don't think that it is. Uh, the
deal is a vertical deal. It doesn't combine to competitors. And when you talk about consolidation or too much concentration, at least in antitrust parlance which you're thinking about, our is too much one one buyer or seller of a competing product. And that's not what you have here. So you have a vertical integration, which is usually thought of as more efficient. Thank you, Jennifer Free Bloomberg Intelligence Analysis, talking about possible antitrust action in the Trump administration.