David Sirota 0:03
David from the levers. Reader supported newsroom, this is lever time. I'm David Sirota. In another unprecedented move, President Donald Trump this week, fired two of the nation's top antitrust regulators at one of the government's oldest agencies, the Federal Trade Commission. But these weren't routine pink slips that happened with the changeover of one administration to the next. Trump fired Senate confirmed commissioners in the middle of their appointed terms, commissioners at an agency that Congress by law deliberately set up to be independent and shielded from control by the executive branch. Today, on lever time, we're going to hear from FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, hours after he received a termination notice from the White House, he explains why this is a battle not just about one federal agency, but about whether the presidency will end up being turned into a monarchy,
you're fired, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired. The news out of Washington has really felt like episodes of The Apprentice with Donald Trump telling everyone they're fired. This week, he terminated the Federal Trade Commission's democratic commissioners, Rebecca Kelly slaughter and Alvaro Bedoya. At one level, this feels like a political hit on behalf of Trump's big boosters. The FTC was conducting antitrust investigations into companies that poured millions of dollars into Trump's inauguration, and Bedoya has been shining a harsh light on the business and workplace practices of Amazon, the company owned by Jeff Bezos, who sat front row at Trump's inauguration. But at another level, the firings seem to represent something even bigger, a power grab aiming to permanently change the federal government and turn the president into a monarch. Over the last few weeks, Trump has been firing appointees at various independent agencies, deliberately setting up a legal showdown. The administration has said it believes that job protections for appointees at independent agencies are unconstitutional. Just weeks after Trump took office, his Justice Department said it plans to ask the US Supreme Court to invalidate those job protections for good, allowing all future presidents to remove those appointees at will. How will the supreme court rule? It's hard to say. But as the lever recently reported, as a Reagan Administration lawyer in the 1980s Chief Justice John Roberts wrote a memo declaring that such job protections are legal. But now Trump seems determined to force the issue, and it's anyone's guess where John Roberts will come down
hours after FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya received his termination notice from the Trump White House, I got in touch with him to discuss what the stakes of this are, and he told me the stakes are way bigger than the typical Palace dramas of Washington. He says this is about an unprecedented power grab designed to create an intense culture of corruption so that donors wanting favors can just kiss the ring of the monarch president and get the regulatory policies they want with no independent cops on the beat to dispassionately enforce The Law. Here's my full discussion with Alvaro Bedoya. You
What a day for you, huh?
Alvaro Bedoya 3:46
No, the day of paradise.
David Sirota 3:48
Yeah. It was a it was a busy day. Let's just say that, yeah. First up, how did you get the news that President Trump was attempting to fire you with an underscoring of attempting and we'll get to that. But how did you get that news?
Alvaro Bedoya 4:04
So it was after work, and I'd actually just arrived at my daughter's gymnastics class, and I got a call from Commissioner slaughter saying, Have you checked your email? I just got an email from the White House saying that I've been fired. Now some people may be confused about how
David Sirota 4:22
people like you get appointed to serve a term on an independent agency you get confirmed. You're supposed to serve the term, and the term is supposed to exist to make sure that you can't just be fired by any president. And so how do you explain to somebody who thinks that about the FTC? How do you explain how you now sort of being targeted in an attempt to fire you? So let's take a step back and talk about, you know, what the FTC is and why it's structured the way it is. I think that might be helpful. Yeah, so in the end of the 19th century.
Alvaro Bedoya 5:00
People were living in the Gilded Age, and they realized that more and more they were living in the robber barons world, right? And so Standard Oil, the beef Trust, the sugar trust, were jacking up prices on basic items. They were screwing over small producers like ranchers and farmers, and so Congress started passing laws to rein them in. First was something called the Interstate Commerce Commission, and eventually, 1914 they passed something called the Federal Trade Commission Act. And what Congress wanted to do was insulate
people like me, people who are commissioners at the FTC and other independent commissions from political pressure from corrupt politicians. They wanted to ensure that we could only be removed if we, you know, engaged in malfeasance and neglect or fraud.
And so they created these bodies that and said the president could only remove us for cause under those circumstances. And for a few years, there was an open question as to whether or not this was constitutional. But in the 1930s the Supreme Court stepped in and said, No, this is good law. This is constitutional. The American public wins when there are independent experts appointed to independent commissions to decide to protect consumers from fraudsters and monopolists. Fast forward to today, and what I think is happening is that President Trump is trying to ensure that there is no such thing as an independent FTC, so that his billionaire friends will have their way when their mergers come around. And I think this is something that everyone needs to realize. You know, when you look at the picture of the president at his inauguration, he has over his shoulder, Mr. Musk, Mr. Bezos and Mr. Zuckerberg. I think Mr. Zuckerberg donated a million dollars through meta. Mr. Bezos donated a million also. Amazon cut a deal, which, according to New York Post, would result in $28 million flowing to the First Lady for a license for a documentary featuring her. I think Amazon also just licensed the apprentice. Here's the thing to realize, David, I am suing Amazon in not one but two separate lawsuits. One of those lawsuits has to do with the fact that they were signing up people for Prime even when they didn't want prime, and even when they said, No, I do not want prime. The other lawsuit has to do with the fact that they basically rigged their platform so that it is impossible to offer prices lower than the price that a small business is offering on Amazon, and basically forcing small businesses to stay on the platform and forcing them to cough up roughly 50 cents on every dollar they sell on the site. Who do you think wins by the President's illegal attempt to remove me from this office? Is it the small businesses that are on Amazon? Is it the people who use meta and who care about their privacy, or is it the billionaires who are at that inauguration? That's the question people need to be asking themselves today. So and Public Citizen has reported tonight that not even counting, you know, those campaign donations that you mentioned that corporations currently facing Federal Trade Commission investigations and lawsuits have collectively gave $8 million towards Trump inauguration. You mentioned some. There's others, Abbott, Adobe. You mentioned Amazon, Coca Cola, meta, Microsoft, open AI, Uber, synergenta, etc, etc. So clearly, Trump has an agenda here, but I want you to respond to his administration's argument, which they basically say that there's an election.
David Sirota 8:57
Democracy is people vote, they elect their leader. The leader has been the small d democratic authority to put his own people into the government to carry out the policies that he wants, the policies that allegedly the voters voted for.
Alvaro Bedoya 9:20
It's a fine point of view. It just happens to not be the law in this country. The Supreme Court has spoken clearly in saying that we can only be removed for cause. The letter I got from the White House expressly has no cause. This is overtly illegal, and he may be able to persuade the Supreme Court that he is right and that and that the protections that apply to me are not good law, but right now, today, March 2025, it is good law, and what he's attempting to do is illegal.
David Sirota 9:51
Do you think that the effort to remove you to remove other folks at independent agencies?
Case is
not necessarily about, or put it this way, as much about the specific policy,
antitrust policy, for instance, in your case, as it is about trying to force that Supreme Court case, trying to tee up a Supreme Court case that in which the Supreme Court has a chance to essentially eviscerate the independence, not only of the FTC, but all other such similarly situated independent agencies. Right Is it is this part of a strategy to to enshrine a power grab into law?
Alvaro Bedoya 10:42
So I think it's interesting when the President tried to fire me, because I was not fire, you know, he didn't try to fire me in the first week or two, like it was a lot of a lot of other folks. Good point. Yeah. And if you look at what I have spent my time doing and saying in that intervening time, what have I been doing? I have spent my time calling on the chairman of the FTC to actually work to lower prices for millions of Americans across country, instead of fighting culture wars online, I have spent it calling for an investigation into absurdly high egg prices and the possible monopolists that line the production chain of egg production in America and in Europe, because Europe controls a key source of layer breeder hens that supply our eggs here in this country, I've spent that time denouncing Jeff Bezos for treating his workers like Garbage, like discardable machines. I think it was a week and a half ago I denounced Mr. Bezos, where he was coolly saying the Op Ed page of the Washington Post will solely feature articles or op eds on personal liberties in free markets. And for me, when I think about free markets, I don't think about the Op Ed page of the Washington Post. I think about the vending machines that are in Mr. Bezos warehouse that dispense not chips but painkillers. Amazon warehouses have an injury rate two times higher the industry. When people literally wear diapers on the line. They pee in bottles, they break disks in their backs, their hands stop working. And guess who has been nominated to head the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, an Amazon executive who was precisely in charge of safety
for their drivers. And the idea that this person would be nominated after Amazon has donated, by my count, somewhere along, you know, well over $50 million into the President's pockets. Does not strike me as a coincidence. And so I think I was pushed out, because what I was doing and saying, in trying to stand up for the American consumer worker in the face of these oligarchs, what about the idea that the FTC in particular was one of the places where there was some hope that Trump maybe wouldn't be necessarily as strong as former his administration wouldn't be as as strong on antitrust as former chairwoman Lena Khan, but would, But would be better than your standard pro merger Republican, the idea that the the FTC was was positioning itself, even the new chair had sort of done a couple of things that suggested it wasn't just going to be a complete corporate free for all. So certainly, you know, I heard what the Vice President said about our former chair Khan. And yes, you're right. You know, the current chairman of the FTC, Andrew Ferguson, ratified the merger guidelines that we put in place, together with chair Khan and Assistant Attorney General Cantor, who are two extraordinary public servants. I'll note, look, the merger guidelines went out of their way to protect workers against mergers that would lower their wages. And so you're right, those were good things. But here's the thing,
dissent is completely meaningless. If your best dissent is your last, if simply disagreeing with the President gets you fired, which is what the President says he can do, there is no such thing as a meaningful antitrust agenda. Why? Because the President can do with FTC, what do you do with DOJ and and New York City Mayor Eric Adams, he can say, I've cut a sweetheart deal with this guy, and you better ratify it. And if you don't, you're out of here. That is what I'm worried about for the FTC. Let's talk a little bit about about that the Supreme Court. We've reported that way back in the 1980s then Ronald Reagan Administration lawyer John Roberts wrote that if independent agencies perform quasi judicial or quasi legislative functions, then job protections for independence are, in fact, constitutional, essentially up.
David Sirota 15:00
Holding the independence, the desire, congressionally desired, independence of an agency like the FTC. Brett Kavanaugh has written that the job protection doctrine, quote, is an entrenched Supreme Court precedent, protected by previous precedents. Although he's been he's also, at times, been a critic. I'm just curious what you think ultimately, if this gets to the Supreme Court,
Alvaro Bedoya 15:25
what you know of the court? Where do you think they come down? So look, I'm not going to predict what they will or won't do, but what I will do is call out what their own decisions have said. Their own decisions have said, in Humphreys, executor, in other cases, that there is a value to having an independent, bipartisan body of experts that builds up expertise and deploys that expertise irrespective of political pressures, and is immune from the corrupting influences of those pressures. And so my hope is that they read the precedents that their own body has set out recently, and, you know, 90 years ago, and follows those principles to their logical end. It is not possible to have fair markets when the president decides what mergers goes through, go through and what mergers do not. It is not possible to have a level playing field for small business when oligarchs can decide what lawsuits are brought and what lawsuits are dropped. It certainly is not possible to to have positive pressures on wages and lower prices, on prices, lower pressures on prices in this environment, I think this is a disaster for our ability to enforce antitrust in this country. If this effort goes through, what kind of message do you think the attempt to fire you sends to Republican appointees throughout the government? I mean, clearly we understand what message is being sent to hold over or existing democratic appointees, if they're really if there are any left. But I'm just curious, there's an idea here that this is also sending a message to essentially all of Trump's appointees about what can happen to them at allegedly independent agencies if they don't toe the White House lie.
Speaker 1 17:22
I think the message is very clear. And the message is obey. The message is you shall do what we want you to do, or else it could not be clear to me that that is the message being sent by firing us. Final question, I want to go back to this, this issue of corruption, just to really spell it out for folks. What you're really arguing here is that if there aren't independent agencies deciding things in a bipartisan empirical way, things like whether a merger should go through, or at least what effect a merger would have on the economy that it creates the conditions, what I hear you saying that creates the conditions for corruption, that if everyone has to go kiss the ring of the king, the king gets to be the sole decider, And the king typically won't necessarily be deciding things in any kind of consistent way. So if, if that's the case, if, if defanging and and killing off the independence of independent agencies breeds corruption, I'm curious if you also think that it breeds potentially instability in what, for instance, businesses can expect on economic policy, or at least the enforcement of the law, right? I mean, does this create not only corruption, but also a sense of unpredictability when so much power is consolidated in the hands of one person? That's right. Let me say two things to that. The first is, not only does it create instability, but it screws small businesses and startups. Small businesses and startups thrive when they can compete on their merits, when they put out the best app, the best product, they offer, the best service. Small, small and independent businesses and startups fail when what matters is not how good they are, but how powerful their friends are, because they can never compete with the oligarchs. That's the first thing I want to say. The second thing is that the American political system is awash in money. You cannot run a presidential campaign without a billion dollars. And with all due respect to Vice President Harris, I think we saw some of the effect of that money when Vice President Harris refused to say she would continue to have chair Khan in place
Alvaro Bedoya 19:52
as FTC chair were she re elected. And I'm afraid that if people don't act and.
Speaker 1 20:00
People don't demand an independent FTC from their legislators, and also, if the Supreme Court does not move to protect us that we are headed for a very dark future, FTC Commissioner. Alvaro Bedoya, thank you so much for taking time today, and I called you Commissioner because I just should ask, technically, are you? Are you still a commissioner? Are you? Is it like a gray area, like, what is your actual status right now,
Alvaro Bedoya 20:24
legally, I am still an FTC Commissioner. I think I am an FTC Commissioner, and I'm going to court to clarify that, for the sake of everyone involved. And so the President may think he's fired me, but he has not fired me, and I'll be going to court to clarify that ASAP. We will be following it. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Thanks for taking the time today. Thank you, David,
David Sirota 20:49
thanks for listening to today's episode of lever time. This episode was produced by me. David Sirota, Arjun Singh Ariella Markowitz and Natalie bettendorf. Music is by Nick Byron Campbell, to get all of our lever time episodes, make sure to search lever time in your podcast app or go to lever time podcast.com you.
