YouSaid · the spoken record

Lina Khan

lines on the record: 27
first: 2025-11-23
most recent: 2025-11-23
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“I guess I'm curious what they mean by if we bite too hard, right? Because what we were doing at the FTC, what agencies like the SEC were doing, were enforcing the law. We were doing investigations. And if we found that a company was breaking the law and it was resulting in harm for people, we took action. We didn't then think, oh, is this company a powerful donor to the Democratic Party and should we go light? And candidly at this moment, when we are seeing unprecedented levels of corruption from the Republican Party and total pay-to-play, the idea that our response to that should be, okay, maybe we should be a little bit more corrupt too is frankly mind-boggling to me.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, there's been some research showing that. And there are all these middlemen, including companies like McKinsey, basically telling retailers, you know, hire us and we'll help you do this type of surveillance pricing. But I think it's a real risk the idea that an airline would have data from your email inbox announcing a funeral service and then jack up the price because they know you have to get across the country quickly, charging a family more because they know that there is a nut allergy and so you have to pay more for the nut free cereal than other families. I mean, I think there's just a real potential for exploitation and extraction to an extent that we really haven't seen before.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hugely concerned. And when I was at the FTC, we started an inquiry into this issue of surveillance pricing, the idea that we could soon be living in a world where all pricing is set based on what the company knows they can get away with charging you. And some of the initial documents that we found found that companies were clearly talking about basically charging people just below people's pain point. And so they were very explicit that they want to reach the exact level that they know you can pay without walking away. And that's going to be a radically different economy. And, you know, we've already seen studies showing that some rideshare companies seem to jack up prices when they can tell that your battery is lower.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Certain limits on overdraft fees, certain requirements for overtime pay. The FTC's non-compete rules of these rules just went to go die at the door of some Texas federal judge. And there have been efforts to try to prevent this foreign shopping, but the judiciary doesn't seem very interested in really policing that. So I think another big challenge for next Democratic administration is going to be figuring out how do we really govern in a way that is both making people's lives materially better, but when we have a judiciary that is very skeptical, at least of Democrats at these agencies. And some of the cases that are before the court, including the tariffs one, are going to give us an opportunity to see how one-sided is this skepticism. Is it okay to have a very muscular government when you have a Republican president, but not when you have a Democratic one? But this is absolutely going to be”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, so we've seen an unprecedented assault on the independence of federal agencies. There had been a whole set of agencies where there had been restrictions on the president's ability to unilaterally fire people. The idea being that you wanted some degree of continuity, some degree of expertise, and this administration has basically decided”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And when given the chance these past few months, they've all just bent the knee time after time and chosen self-enrichment and personal profit over principle and any commitment to the rule of law or the public or democracy. And I think that needs to be a core lesson and we need to kind of update our priors as we go forward. I think there's also going to be a key question about what does accountability look like in a future democratic administration? For people who have broken the law, for people who have decided to engage in blatant corruption even when it's illegal, because this administration is game to play ball. So I think that's something that we're going to have to really talk about and figure out.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's absolutely what we're seeing right now. I mean, I think the incident that occurred a few weeks ago with Jimmy Kimmel was a perfect illustration of how concentrated economic power can make it easier for people with authoritarian instincts to try to basically have people bend the knee. You know, if you have dozens or hundreds of companies in a market, you really need a lot of people to decide that they're going to surrender before the whole market goes your way when you just have four or five players, it's really just up to the four and five individuals who are calling the shots to decide, are we going to go along or are we not? I think the other interesting thing here is, you know, there had been some speculation in the past that if push came to shove, the monopolist, the CEOs, the Titans of industry would ultimately stand up for democracy and be on the side of the rule of law.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Secrecy and really try to keep from the public basic information about what's happening in their backyards. We're also now hearing increasingly a lot of these executives admit that there's probably a bubble here, that they're overinvesting in just this last week we heard suggestions from one of the companies that maybe the government's going to need to bail us out one day. And so I think all of the concerns around privatizing benefits and profits, but socializing risk and pain is something that they very much seem headed towards. And we're going to need a really assertive government to really stand up to that. And I worry that's the last thing we have in place right now.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it's extraordinarily dangerous. I mean, we talk a lot about one of the real virtues and strengths of the American system has been decentralization, both in terms of the checks and balances we have in our political system, but also in our economy, where competitive markets have been such a key driver of innovation in America's strength on the global stage. And what we see right now is really a form of central planning. I mean, you basically have more or less five to seven executives that are single-handedly charting the future trajectory of this technology in ways that is going to have huge public ramifications. And I was already is. I mean, we're already seeing with, you know, where data centers are being built, even the contracts that some of these companies are pushing for to keep maximally under wraps, what are the terms on which these data centers are being built, a real push for”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the most important signals we had started to send in the last administration was that there's no AI exemption from the laws on the books. I think something we've seen historically is that when you have some type of new technology coming into the market, oftentimes companies will try to argue, oh, this is so new, this is so innovative, we need a new legal regime. We need a new agency, new regulations, the existing laws don't apply. And we'd wanted to make clear at the very least that price fixing is still illegal even if you're doing it with AI, discrimination is still illegal even if you're doing it with AI. Fraud is still illegal. You can't have just these huge loopholes because you're doing it through AI. What we've seen from this administration is basically total amnesty more or less for AI. They've said, look, we really care about innovation. Yes, also these CEOs are making weekly pilgrimages to the White House, and so we're not going to be doing much on this front.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it's no surprise, I guess, that the tax prep companies like Intuit and HR Block have donated a lot of money to the administration. They'd actually been responsible for decades now for basically trying to prevent the government from offering this public option. And it was great to see the Biden administration be able to overcome that pressure, but basically now everybody's going to be stuck having to pay turbo tax again.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Fast food workers are often now required to find non competes. I mean, we got a comment from somebody who said, you know, I work in a burrito shop and I have a non-compete. And if I basically went across the street to work at the other Mexican restaurant, I would get hit with a lawsuit for tens of thousands of dollars. And the effect of that is that it suppresses your wages because one of the best sources of leverage that workers often have against their employer is to go get another job and then be able to bargain. And so this is something they've walked away from. They also announced recently that they're going to kill the last administration's direct file program, which had basically made it so that you didn't have to use these tax.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Rule that would have eliminated the vast majority of non compete clauses in this country, which are these contractual clauses that basically lock people in and say, even once you leave your current job, you can't go work for certain other companies, you can't go start your own business. And this has meant that you have security guards, janitors, fast food workers, people that are now making less money because their employer is locking them in. And this was a rule that we had extraordinary support for.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, we've seen stunning levels of just backsliding at the FGC, but really across parts of the government that are supposed to be standing up for Americans against corporate law breaking. One of the rules that we finalized at the FTC was a rule that said companies have to make it as easy to cancel a subscription as it is to sign up for one. Responding to the fact that as we've seen more and more turn to subscriptions and everything as a service, we've seen the companies can make it extraordinarily easy to sign up but absurdly difficult to cancel where you have to call somebody but there's nobody there to pick up the phone or you have to do something by certified mail or even go in person. And so we said this actually violates the laundry. The FTC Act and every business should make it easy. That was a rule that the FTC recently has basically given up on. They also gave up on the non-competes rule.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And how much can you fix affordability without also demanding some type of accountability? And so I think that needs to be a really key question to make sure that we're not leaving the accountability portion out of the affordability conversation.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think oftentimes in D.C. it can be really easy to just develop a lot of blind spots, become really insular, over indexed for the views of a narrow class of experts and pundits and really lose touch with what are the day-to-day struggles that people are facing. And so I think modeling that type of basic curiosity, which can also just teach you a lot and then the policy can flow from that. I think there's no substitute for that. The other thing I'll say is, you know, it's been really interesting to see a lot of the conversation and reflections from Tuesday land on this issue of affordability is what we have to focus on. And I think one question for me is, great, let's do affordability. But if the drivers of high costs sometimes are going to be powerful corporate actors, are we going to be willing to call that out?”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We see members across the country talking about, be it if you're concerned about farmers or if you're concerned about local auto shops that you want to make sure that people have the freedom to prepare their products easily and cheaply. And so a lot of this is just going to depend on what are the local issues. I mean, one of the videos that Mayor Lek Mumdani first put out as part of his campaign was a set of interviews with halal cart businessmen. And he was just asking them. I've seen that the price of chicken and rice has gone from $8 to $10. Why is that? What are the input costs and what is driving this? And I think that sense of curiosity about what is really happening in the economy and talking to people and asking them, that type of learning is just invaluable. And it's something we really tried to do with the FTC.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, this problem is now so prevalent across the country that you could literally be airdropped into any zip code and there would be a story to tell about how corporate power is making life worse. And so I think a lot of it is going to depend on where you live. We have members of Congress that are very focused on this issue of private equity buying up doctors' practices, sometimes buying up housing and the real degradation. I mean, there are now studies showing that mortality rates have increased after private equity firms have bought up ER practices or nursing homes. There are places where members are very concerned about consolidation across the agriculture market. So the fact that you have foreign meat packers, four chicken processors that control the whole market, and you have consumers paying more, even as farmers are making less and the middlemen are squeezing more and more, right to repair is something.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which is something that for a lot of rural states we would have farmers kind of fly in and sit down and some of them would sometimes be literally in tears describing an instance where they lost a whole harvest because deer didn't let them fix their tractor in time. And so this is not some abstraction. This is really about people's day-to-day lives and the myriad ways that unfortunately corporate law breaking can be a big driver of why people feel like they're not getting a fair chance.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, the agency has a pretty broad mandate. Congress created the agency in 1914 against the backdrop of the robber barons, and there was a general momentum to make sure that the government was standing up to corporate giants. And so the agency is tasked with everything from taking on fraudsters and spammers to blocking mergers and consolidation that would result in higher prices or a lot of layoffs to things like making sure we're ensuring that companies can't trap you in subscriptions surveil you. And so really the breadth of the work was extraordinary. We were especially focused on what are the biggest pain points in people's data lives. So we were very focused on healthcare markets.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, Steve is in really like the deep cuts of anti monopoly, so he's really talking about some of the kind of philosophical schools of thought of how to be enforcing the law.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That is responsible for why your life is bad, being willing to just call that out openly, even if that actor is powerful and wealthy. And then B, to make sure that we're actually doing something about it. And so I think when the FTC I think when the FTC was bringing a lot of actions, be it taking on big corporate landlords that were ripping people off, tech companies that were spying on kids, pharma companies that were making people ration life-saving medicines, this was all extraordinarily popular. And I think there is a burgeoning populist movement on both sides and the Republican side and the Democratic side. And I think that's where you see that genuine overlap.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's a really fascinating question and honestly, one of the most surprising parts of my time at the FTC was seeing how extraordinarily popular a lot of what we were doing was, even with Republicans, grassroots Republicans. I mean, I would get handwritten letters from people saying things like, I'm a lifelong Republican, hardcore free market capitalist. But if you all ban non-compete clauses or block the Kroger-Albertsons merger, it'll be the best thing the government has ever been done in my life. And I think there's just been a recognition that unchecked corporate power really undermines people in their day-to-day lives, right? It rips them off. It means they're less free practically. It just corrodes people's day-to-day living. And I think for a long time, people have felt that the federal government has not always been very forward-leaning in A, calling that out. If there's a bad actor,”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I mean, look, he's pulling together a top-notch set of people to help him fully scenario plan and make sure they are prepared for all potential contingent scenarios that take place. So I think you have to be maximally prepared when these sorts of things are even being floated.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So, they have a lot of the antitrust work as done by the New York AG's office. They do have an agency called the Division of Consumer and Worker Protection that has a whole bunch of authorities, some of which mirror what the FTC was doing. But be it in the context of the technology industry or the healthcare industry or food and groceries, they do have a whole set of laws that are designed to make sure that companies are not abusing their power. And so, you know, I'll look forward to them being able to deploy that”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Products are made in America when they aren't. And sometimes they had just been ignored by the FTC and not really enforced. So, you know, I want to make sure that to the extent that the city has a robust set of laws that the American enforce that were going and understanding what is the full authority, a lot of what he is going to be looking to deliver is going to be requiring working closely with other institutional actors, be it the governor, be it the legislature, but he should also have a lot of ability to do things unilaterally. And so we want to make sure he has a good sense of what that is.”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“First of all, it's so great to be here. So, yeah, really honored to get to be a co chair of the incoming mayor's transition team. A lot of what we'll be doing is very traditional transition team stuff, trying to figure out who is the best position to take what role, and also figure out how can we make sure that this administration is set up to deliver on the extraordinarily ambitious agenda that they have set out for themselves. Coming from the FTC, I'm going to be especially focused on things like how do we make sure that we have a full accounting of all of the laws and authorities that the mayor can unilaterally deploy. I think one thing that was really shocking to me at the FTC was just how much dormant and unused and underused authorities had just been on the books. Like literally, Congress had passed laws, sometimes saying things as uncontroversial as it should be illegal to say you're”
2025-11-23 · Pod Save America · What Will Democratic Governance Look Like? + Lina Khan (Crooked Con) · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source