On with Kara Swisher - Ken Buck Takes On the Big Tech Boogeyman

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Congressman Ken Buck is a Republican from Colorado who’s decided to take on “Big Tech.” He talks about his proposed TikTok ban, the uphill battle for antitrust legislation and why he’s defending Elon’s “free speech” push. Thoughts? Questions? Email us [e-mail] or find us on Twitter (if you can in this new, Elon-centric algorithm) @karaswisher and @nayeema Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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set, grow. Go to ConstantContact.ca and start your free trial today. Go to ConstantContact.ca for your free trial. ConstantContact.ca Hi everyone from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. This is the Tesla New York unionizing effort with 100% less union busting. Just kidding. This is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. And I'm Naeem Arraza. And Elon is not going to like their unionizing efforts in New York State, is he?

No. He doesn't like when the minions rise. He doesn't. He wanted them all to show up for work in the early pandemic. The lords and ladies don't like when the peasants get drunk. He's a peasant. You're a lord because you have a legacy blue check and he is coming for it. He's kicking it away from you.

Go ahead. Are you sad? No, not even slightly, honestly. I'm very excited for him to purge the legacy blue check so then I can pretend that I had one that got purged as opposed to I was so irrelevant I never had one. Yeah, it's just ridiculous. It's such a ridiculous, like literally, let me know when he stops punching down. I'd really like to know when that happens and then we can move along. So anyway, how are you doing? I'm doing okay. I'm visiting my mother in DC. I've been really sad reading about the news in Syria

and Turkey. And it's obviously terrible earthquake, 35,000 people dead. I'm sure that's just, we're going to learn even more in week two of the rescue effort. But it's reminding me in some way, because they're going after the building companies now. Are you seeing this? Where they're, yeah, Erdogan is like wanting heads to, people are mad and they want to blame someone and rightly, and you have these construction companies who either skimped on the building codes or they were given these construction amnesties, which allowed them to skimp. And so government has a point going after them. People have a point going after them. But they're also scapegoats because it's government's failing too.

To me, it's just like rampant greed and government oversight and preventable deaths. And this is a flashback to, for me, the Champlain Towers in Miami and Surfside. Yeah, that was a tragedy. You had a friend who was killed there. Yeah, 98 people died, including my college roommate, a good friend of mine, Teresa Velasquez. And she was the last one in the rubble. And they spoke to her, the rescuers. And so when that video came out that Orhan Pamuk wrote about the

young girl who was trapped and the rebel in Turkey, I mean, it's just, it's like the same thing, I think. It is, and it's just, you know, people don't think it's going to happen, and they have risk assessments that are really, don't think about the people living there at all, and they want to make another dirty buck, essentially. It's shoddy construction,

it's like inspectors not seeing what's happening. You called me conservative the other day, but I actually believe in big government, which is like the truth of liberal. Well, good government. You don't want big government. You want better government. That's all in that case. That's true.

More government, I should say. Yeah. Not everybody does. Yeah. Well, speaking of government and needing more government, our guest today is Colorado Congressman Ken Buck. He's a Republican who has been pushing strongly for antitrust. He's probably the strongest big tech critic on the Republican side, barring Josh Hawley. Yeah, well, it's different. It's different. He's really learned. He was on that committee last year with David Cicilline. He became very close to David Cicilline, which is an unlikely duo, a gay Democrat from Rhode Island and a sort of cowboy Republican, very conservative congressman.

From Colorado, yeah. But they still have in common this big tech criticism. And he's been hopeful that there would be some bills passed. He's made it one of his big issues. And his own party recently snubbed him because in McCarthy's house, if you can call it that, he obviously appointed Jim Jordan as head of the Judiciary Committee. And Jordan and McCarthy have installed a more libertarian, Thomas Massey of Kentucky, to chair the Antitrust Committee over Ken Buck.

So it's a good time to catch up with Ken. The last time we spoke to him was on our podcast, The Times. Yeah, it was interesting. We had some back and forth about whether he was vaccinated or not. That was a different era. But, you know, he definitely was very clear about how he felt. And now, you know, he's written this book, and he did get snubbed from this committee. And I think he's committed. He's created an antitrust group with Cicilline. And I think it'll be interesting to see if they ever can pass any antitrust legislation. I just talked to John Cantor, who obviously has to deal with the laws he's got, but he certainly would support some

sort of new antitrust legislation, which has not happened, although many efforts have been made. The new book is called Crush, Big Tech's War on Free Speech with a Foreword by Senator Ted Cruz. What a pairing. Ken Buck has come out in defense of Elon on a lot of this free speech stuff. So I imagine you're going to apply him with questions about that, Cara. I shall. I shall. You know, he's like a lot of Republicans. They sort of want to traffic in some things and other things and sort of make a tech a monolithic.

Well, they want to make tech a monolithic boogeyman. And it's very complex. And it requires complexity of thought. And this is just easy to say, you know, big tech's trying to spy on you. It doesn't really get you to what you need, which is a decent and reasonable legislation that preserves innovation and also preserves the, you know, the really good things about these companies. So one thing that Ron Klain said, I think, when he was on our show last time, and I think he'll be coming back soon, the recently departed chief of staff for President Biden. He said something about public opinion not being there with tech. I don't think people care.

Yeah, people don't care enough. But they do. They only care when it's young girls. There was just a terrible CDC report out about the impact of mental illness with teen girls. Yeah, one in three girls is depressed and considers suicide. But it's very clear that since the dawn of social media, it's been made worse. But aren't they doing public service in that sense, even if they're doing a big tech boogeyman, isn't that rising levels of concern? No, you can't fake it your way into legislation.

Well, that's just changing public sentiment. No, but that's not true, not with lack of truth. This is something we need. Big means not innovation. Thank you. That really should be it. We're a democracy where lots of small startups should be able to compete. And so it's pretty basic. And I think I do agree with Ken Buck and David Cicilline on this. Yeah, I think it would be interesting to see. I'm sure in this case, like in cigarettes or safety belts, it'll be up to the courts to change some of this behavior on social media. No, it's up to Congress to pass laws.

That's really where they are. But when are they going to do it, Kara? Never. You've been telling them to do it for years. I have, but unfortunately, they have not. Everybody promises me that they'll do it, but they don't do it. So there we are. All right, Kara, have a good interview.

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Enterprise ready AI. All right, welcome, Representative Buck. It's been about a year since we talked last time. I think that's right. So we've got a lot to talk about. But before we dive into the weeds, you wanted the president to declare a national emergency and ban TikTok. Explain why you asked for this. Sure. The CCP and China in particular are clearly an adversary for the United States. TikTok is one of many ways that they will gather information on Americans. Any future war, and hopefully we never have a war with China or Russia or any of our

adversaries, but if we do, it'll be fought in space and it'll be fought in cyber. And the cyber warfare depends on gathering the kind of data that they are gathering from TikTok. So until TikTok is an American company with the data stored here in America that cannot be accessed by the Communist Chinese Party, then it needs to be banned in the United States. I think before it gets banned, and it's a very popular app, and I understand that, but before it gets banned, that there will be some sort of safeguard put in place that will satisfy people. But when you do this, do you think it's kind of like not saber rattling, but smartphone rattling at the Chinese. Do you think it's

effective? Because you do have the popularity of the app here. It's obviously a good app. Have you used TikTok? I have not. You haven't, so you don't know. It's really fun. It really is. It's well done. But what's the actual chances of a ban from your perspective? I have to say a lot of people I never thought would say it are saying it. Is that in order to get them to an area where our teens can use TikTok and not us feel at risk? Yeah, I think that's the exact reason for it. Now, at what point does somebody blink and we move forward? Perhaps there is a ban, and then there is this change in data collection and ownership and control, and then the ban comes off. But hopefully it happens before there is a ban and people don't get service disrupted, but at the same time we're protecting the American public.

Yeah, what I think people don't realize is there's a lot of U.S. money tied up in TikTok. A lot of the big investors in TikTok are U.S. venture capitalists and others. And so does that create a problem? Because a lot of this could hurt U.S. interests or financial interests. Yeah, I think people invest money and they understand the risks. And frankly, I think when they understand the potential harm, the investors would want to act responsibly and would want this change to occur. Oh, you've never met venture capitalist Representative Buck. I think they like their money Oh, you've never met venture capitalist Representative Buck. I think they like their money.

So you've recently published this new book called Crushed, Big Tech's War on Free Speech. I want you to describe the war in your terms. Sure. Well, I think what we have is several companies who are controlling the flow of information in this country. And by controlling that flow of information, they can influence outcomes of elections and public opinion. And by controlling that flow of information, they can influence

outcomes of elections and public opinion. All right. But do they? They do all the time. Sometimes they do it at the behest of the government. Sometimes they are trying to make sure that their version of the efficacy of masks or vaccines is not disputed, sort of in a public discussion. They also are doing it in other areas. I think the Hunter Biden laptop story is a good example of how they impacted an election. And I'm not suggesting that the election was stolen. I'm not suggesting that the difference would have been a different president in 2020. But I am suggesting that's a power that they wouldn't have otherwise had. I think they have far too much power. But the idea of this conspiracy theory is,

I haven't seen proof, let's just say. I'm looking forward to seeing proof. Seeing proof of? Of them sitting in a room and making decisions like this. Let me give you an example. Last month, you said Google changed its algorithm to, quote, benefit Joe Biden and disadvantage Donald Trump. I do think you're wrong because I haven't seen any evidence that they have actually done this. So how do you come to that conclusion? I come to the conclusion because I've had publishers of various, and more than one, conservative publication tell me that in June of 2020, their readership changed. And when they looked into it, they found that their results on Google were much different. As you know, I think the Hunter Biden thing was a

huge mistake. Not necessarily purposely, they just did it because they were worried about non-consensual photos, all kinds of things, but they made a mistake and then they corrected it. But when you came on my show last year, you said, quote, I don't believe in the big lie. So let's play a recording of a meeting you had with your constituents in 2021, where you said Google chose the winner and moved 15 million votes. Google, by the way, changed its algorithm in May of 2020 to disadvantage Donald Trump and to advantage Joe Biden. Changed its algorithm. And when you ask them about this, and I know people that own newspapers and asked them about it,

they say, oh, well, that's just a technical thing. We don't know what the result was. We just know that a technical person did this. Nonsense. They chose the winner. They can move. The estimates are they moved 15 million votes. I want to understand where the proof is, because instead of saying Dominion changed votes, which great amount of litigation going on about that right now, you're saying Google moved votes. How is that better than what the- No, no, no, no. What I'm saying is that Google changed their algorithm and influenced people and influenced up to 50 million people. Now, I can't look at an algorithm.

I don't know if you can. But the only way really to prove something like that is somebody who worked on the algorithm becomes a whistleblower and steps forward and says, you know, this happened. whistleblower and steps forward and says, you know, this happened. But clearly, the anecdotal information that I get from conservative news sources is that they were treated differently in June of 2020 than they were in May of 2020. And that stayed the same for the rest of the year. Okay, but you said they chose the winner. So again, proof is what I'm talking about. When is that whistleblower coming forward, I guess? Well, I don't have a whistleblower at this point in time. What I do have are conservative news sources telling me that something changed.

They believe it was the algorithm, and they believed it influenced, in terms of the volume that they were receiving, it influenced tens of millions of votes. These companies do have First Amendment rights to do what they want, correct? I would think we'd agree on that. Well, it's another issue that's being litigated. And whether they have First Amendment rights or not, they are monopolies. And they are monopolies that should have competition. So in other words, if the New York Times prints a story, the Wall Street Journal can print another version of that story, and people can digest that news and make a decision.

When Google changes its algorithm, it's very difficult to have that same competition. I agree with you on that. I just don't know if they actually did it. You can't convict someone of murder before someone's actually dead. You understand how to prove things. You also don't agree on a news piece, right? New York Times doesn't have to, can put up anything it wants. So can the Wall Street Journal.

So can Fox News. Well, it can't put up anything it wants. No, no. But it can put up close to anything it wants. There's libel laws, of course. Right. But, and I think that's the point with these monopolies is if we had five Googles, and that's what, there is a bipartisan effort to make sure we have

competition in this area. And when you look at artificial intelligence, Cara, it gets even more dangerous to have monopolies in charge of that kind of market share, I guess. Yeah, I think we completely agree there. The January 6th committee had a 122-page memo that described how big tech, and now I'm going to use that term very loosely because I think all these companies are different. I don't think there's one monolith necessarily. They allowed calls for violence to spread on the platforms, but according to reporting in the Washington Post, Zolofkin, the Democratic congressman from California, may have helped remove the memo from the final report. Do you think that should have come out?

You wouldn't allege that they were in cahoots with the people who mobbed it on January 6th, correct? No, I don't think they were in cahoots at all. Although I'm not sure it's a technical legal term, but no, I don't think they were in cahoots. You don't know that? I do think that they— You're from Colorado. Cahoots is a big word there, but go ahead. I do think that Parler certainly suffered the consequences after January 6th. And people were using Twitter, people were using Facebook, and they, again, weren't banned or taken off of the App Store as a result of that.

But I suppose I have access to it, and I will read that document. I suppose I have access to it, and I will read that document. But it does not surprise me that Zoe Lofgren was doing her best to defend the tech companies since she represents Silicon Valley and has family ties to some of the tech companies. Let's just say she denies that she did this. Do you think that's censorship then? Do I think it's censorship? No, I don't think it's censorship. I think it is an influence over, I don't think it's censorship. I think it is an

influence over the information in the marketplace of ideas. And I think it's dangerous, but I don't think it's censorship. Okay. So one of the things you just mentioned was Twitter. You recently retweeted Elon Musk and wrote, other online platforms must follow suit of promoting free speech values. I'm curious why, because he does throw people off at Will and just decides, probably in the middle of the night, and then it's well reported, he just decides to throw people off. Isn't that the same thing? Or how do you look at what he's doing there? I by no means think that Elon Musk is the savior for free speech in America, but I do think that he has exposed some nefarious activity at Twitter

before he came into control that is really important for us to have that information in terms of discussing big tech's role in speech in America. So that aspect, I really appreciate. What nefarious things do you think? Because right now there's, again, no proof that they did anything but make stupid mistakes on all sides, and in fact more mistakes when it came to Donald Trump, for example. I think one of the emails said, you know, this person hasn't violated our standards, but I think the person should be taken off the platform. And I forget whether it was Donald Trump or somebody else. Well, he definitely, I'm sorry, I know their rules back and forth. He definitely kept violating them. But go ahead.

But they gave him allowances because he was president. But go ahead. Yeah. So I think that they made decisions beyond just their set of standards. I found that there was no, again, proof. I saw there was proof of incompetence, that's for sure. And I saw that there was proof of people having a very difficult time doing their jobs because it was so massive. And Elon, to me, is doing the exact same thing. It's just he happens to own it.

And he's doing what works for him. I don't know if you use Twitter a lot, but how badly the For You algorithm works now, all I see are Elon's tweets, which I don't welcome necessarily. And he's definitely got a political agenda from what I can tell. I can't tell quite what it is on any given day. But this is another single person owning a single platform and doing what he feels like. Do you equate them to Google's or the old Twitter or anything else? Well, I certainly equate it as dangerous, although Twitter doesn't rise to the level in terms of the scope of its platform that Google or Facebook, Instagram, YouTube have. But it is dangerous in the sense that we don't have enough competition for Twitter that people can go on Twitter and see what they are interested in and then get any other sources. So I think it is dangerous.

In some ways, I can't stand what he's doing, but he can do what he wants. He paid all that ridiculous amount of money for it. And so it's a private company. Do you ever think, well, it's not really a public square. It's a private company. I guess I'm a little more capitalist than you, which is shocking. But I feel like if he bought it, he can break it, which is what he seems to be doing daily. Yeah, I think it's a matter of competition. I don't want a government agency telling Facebook,

this is the truth, and this is not the truth, and this is what you can post, and you can't post this. So I think it's really important that the government doesn't get involved in that area. Just like I don't want the government regulating newspapers or cable TV. But I also recognize that we have competition in newspapers, have competition in cable TV news, and we need to have competition with these other sources as they send information out into America. Speaking of cable TV, you've also accused DirecTV and their parent company, AT&T, of censorship for dropping conservative network Newsmax. Cable and satellite companies drop underperforming networks all the time, and this happens to be an underperforming network. And there is certainly competition in cable. So is that different, or can they just do that?

Well, actually, their viewership on DirecTV had grown over the years, and they had, because they were a right of center, there are left of center news organizations that are getting paid. Now, Fox News gets paid, and Fox Business gets paid on DirecTV, but there are left of center news outlets that get paid. That's because Fox News is better business for them. No, no, no, no, not similar to Fox, but similar to some of the other left-of-center news outlets. DirecTV has said they want to carry the network, they just don't want to pay as much as Newsmax wants. It seems like it's a business dispute. You think it's not? I don't think it is. I think if Newsmax, if DirecTV was trying to save money,

they would look at some of the left-of-center news organizations that had less viewers and cut those viewers rather than not give Newsmax an amount that was similar to— You believe they're being treated unfairly. I do believe they're being treated unfairly, as was One America News. That was, again, a right-of-center news organization that was kicked off by AT&T and DirecTV. Yeah, according to Reuters' investigation, AT&T essentially built OWN, and they provided 90% of the income brought in by OWN's parent company. I think they were trying to make it work. I've never met a capitalist who doesn't want to make money off of anything they

can make. That's my thing. I just don't think somehow they decided to be more woke than greedy. Well, I mean, look at Parler. Parler is an example of folks being more woke than greedy. I mean, look at Parler. Parler is an example of folks being more woke than greedy. They were kicked off by Amazon Web Services. They were kicked off by Apple. I think Google also took action. And the reason they got kicked off, so I know a lot about this. I did that interview with the CEO where he was saying things that were really beyond the pale at that moment.

I do believe it was – I agree. Facebook was much more used by the planners of that mob attack. But at the same time, Parler just happened to be the lowest hanging fruit. I don't know. And the guy went on my podcast and said terrible things. So I don't know if that's quite as much of a plot as that. But Kara, at what point do we say that terrible is okay? You know, the Supreme Court has said- I agree with you. I think my issue wasn't so much that they kicked them off as that one person made the decision versus lots of people, that there wasn't an alternative for Parler to go anywhere, which is why I think there should be alternatives. So let's dive into that,

the legislative weeds a little. Last year, you got a couple of small tech bills into the omnibus bill last year. Talk about what the bills do. Sure. Well, there were three bills. The first one gave state attorney generals the ability to sue and keep it in their home state. So oftentimes, lawsuits by state attorney generals are moved to the Northern District of California, which is the backyard for these tech companies. Okay, what else? So that was one bill. The second bill required disclosures if a foreign country had a large investment, a foreign country's government had a large investment in a particular

company that was undergoing a merger. And that was particularly aimed at China. And that disclosure has to be made so that the FTC or the Department of Justice Antitrust Division can take that into account in deciding whether they want to challenge the merger or not. So that was important. And the third bill was raising raises the fees and the additional resources would go through the appropriations process, go to the Federal Trade Commission and the antitrust. Much needed. They are much outgunned. It's hard to say that about the federal government, but they definitely are against people who have more means, the tech companies. Which brings me to another bill that was supposed to be in the omnibus, the Journalism

and Competition Preservation Act. You told the Washington Post the bill had Kevin McCarthy's approval. A few Republican senators were against it. And they got McConnell to actually kill it. Talk about that bill, because Amy Klobuchar was behind that and tried to work in a bipartisan way to get this passed. Talk about what was in it and why were some of the Republican Center's intent on getting rid of it, including Ted Cruz, who wrote the foreword to your book. I think that Chuck Grassley was working with Senator Klobuchar on that. I believe that he was supporting that bill. He was. So the bill basically allows the smaller news organizations to collaborate and negotiate with these large monopolies. And it's kind of ironic to me, but the thing that prevents the smaller news organizations

from collaborating are the antitrust laws. So it was a waiver of antitrust laws so that they could negotiate with a monopoly who is clearly violating the antitrust laws in a way that will be decided by the courts in the future. But it was really an effort to try to even the negotiating position of these organizations. If we look at rural newspapers, for example, they have gone out of business or been gobbled up and really their local news content has gone away at an astonishing rate in the last 10 years. And it's an effort to try to make sure we are protecting the small local news organizations. So why did it die from your perspective?

It's a great question. from your perspective? It's a great question. You know, the amount of money that these tech companies, in this case, particularly Facebook and Google, they're the two that would have been affected the most by the JCPA. They put a lot of pressure on individuals who came forward and said they wouldn't vote for the Omni if that was included. Which GOP senators did they affect? Yeah, I'm not, I am unaware of that. I just got the news. I was talking to Kevin about it, and Kevin told me McConnell has come out against adding this, and so that's why it died. Do you think it should have passed? Were you surprised it passed in Australia, for example?

There's Canada's considering something like this. Is this needed? I know Senator Klobuchar was sorely disappointed when it died. Yeah, I am too. And I think that it is necessary. The other thing that's really important about this bill, Cara, it was not a bill that allowed this collaboration forever. And so I think we need to have hearings about it. If it needs to be refined in some way to make it more palatable for some of these senators, we need to make that change, but it is a bill that we should continue to discuss.

We'll be back in a minute. Thank you. Find quality candidates fast. Listeners of this show can get a $75 sponsored job credit to get your jobs more visibility at Indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to Indeed.com slash podcast right now and say you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? You need Indeed.

Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Need to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today. All right, so let's move on to the bigger bills. Chuck Schumer said he would bring them up for a vote. Never happened. Again, Senator Klobuchar was involved. Senator Grassley, I think you were also involved. We recently had on Tim Wu, one of President Biden's former antitrust czars. And he said big tech basically threatened to fund ads against anyone who voted for the bills. Does that ring true to you? Yes. Do you feel that pressure? I feel the pressure. And it's not like they come to visit me every day and talk to me. They know where I am on this issue,

but they are constantly putting ads in members' districts talking about, you know, call Joe Schmo and tell him don't vote for this bill because it will, you know, Amazon talks about how Prime will go away. Facebook talks about, well, in fact, for the JCPA, I think they made a public announcement that they just wouldn't have news on their... They tried that in Australia. Yeah, we'll just drop news. All nonsense. They came around in Australia pretty quickly to an agreement that helped, and I think it would happen in this case.

Can you explain how that constrains Congress members if they fear those ads, correct? I mean, they're really quite something to watch them happen. Senator Klobuchar told me that many of the Congress members that wanted to do it then came to her and said, sorry, no, no can do. I won't mention a name because it was a private conversation, but I'll tell you a conversation I had on the House floor with a Democrat member who has a large Amazon presence in her district. And she won with 86% of the vote in spite of Amazon telling its employees about how terrible she was on these tech bills and running commercials. 86% of the vote is almost unheard of in American politics. But the Amazon employees evidently didn't feel very strongly about what Amazon was doing and saw this as an opportunity. The other funny story is that Amazon went out and told all of

its third-party sellers, you've got to put pressure on Congress and you've got to oppose these bills. And then they developed a list of these third-party sellers that were opposing the bills, and they actually weren't opposing the bills. So they can run ads in my district. My people are so afraid of big tech. They're not afraid of Ken Buck and they're not afraid of my poor judgment. They're afraid of big tech and what big tech is doing in this country. And I think that's true in many districts around the country. This unnamed congresswoman won with 86% in spite of Amazon's ad because Amazon didn't carry water with its own employees or these third-party sellers. Why are Congress members so afraid of this? I'm not sure that the House is as much as

the Senate. There is an old saying that every senator looks in the mirror and sees a president. They do. And nobody wants to run for president with four of the largest companies in the history of the world and the amount of money that they spend being able to influence a presidential election. So you think that it has much more effect on senators. Do you think that the effect is real? Oh, yeah. I think the effect is real. I think the JCPA discussion during the National Defense Authorization Act is one example of it being real. But I do think that there are a number of senators. You mentioned Senator Cruz. He is supporting a number of the antitrust bills with Senator Clover.

He pushed on the journalism one, but go ahead. No, that's right. He was opposed to that, but he has also supported a number of bills. Senator Blackburn from Tennessee is the prime sponsor of a bill that would impact Apple, for example, in their app store in the marketplace. And so there are a number of Republican senators who are in favor of some of these antitrust bills. Senator Lee probably has, I think, the most important bill out there with Senator Klobuchar, and that is Google controls the buy side of digital advertising, the sell side, and bought the auction house, AdTech.

I hear there's a Justice Department case, but go ahead. Yeah, there is. The law should change. And I feel really strongly about this, Kara, and that is that Article 1 says that the Congress should make laws and we should be dealing with the tough decisions. Many times, members of Congress don't want to make tough decisions because you can get attacked for tough decisions. We should make the tough decisions. We should do what's necessary to create competition. And the courts should then follow the law as opposed to the courts making the

law in this area. Why does nothing get done? I've asked this question of many, many politicians. Why do you think this doesn't get done? Well, we had the support on the floor of the House. We had the support on the floor of the House. We had the support on the floor of the Senate. The leadership in the House and the leadership in the Senate would not bring those bills up. And that is the cause of it. Clearly, Senator Klobuchar and Senator Grassley would have passed seven or eight bills if they had had the opportunity to do that. And the same in the House. When the three bills came up for a vote in the House, we had a very comfortable margin for supporting those bills.

And I think in other bills, we would have had an even larger margin. But the leadership would not bring them up. What would it actually take to pass these bills? Well, the leader in the Senate and the leader in the House have to put it on the floor. And I think we have the votes in both chambers to get it done. to put it on the floor. And I think we have the votes in both chambers to get it done. But what really has to happen is the American people have to understand that this threat that they perceive from big tech, they need to act on that threat. They need to contact their senators. They need to contact their member of Congress. And they need to make sure that the big tech money

is offset by the popularity of getting something done in this area. I think that's the ultimate weapon that those who believe in competition and believe in the marketplace of ideas and how to make sure that more speech is incorporated in that marketplace. Ultimately, it rests with the people. So does Kevin McCarthy have your back when it comes to fighting big tech? You lost leadership position on the House Judiciary Committee to Thomas Massey, who is, I would say, is not as interested in passing antitrust legislation as you. What was that message leadership was sending here? Well, Kevin McCarthy supported the JCPA and the omnibus, and I think that he would support certain legislation. He is from

California, and I'm not sure he's going to support all legislation. He also has a lot of pressure, the same pressure that Speaker Pelosi had on her not to put things on the floor. So we'll see what develops this year. But it's a little ironic that President Biden is talking about, we need to make sure that we deal with big tech in this next Congress. His voice could have been a lot louder in the last Congress when we had the majorities and we passed six bills out of the House Judiciary Committee. I would agree. I can't believe it didn't pass. What about the recently more powerful personalities like Marjorie Taylor Greene, an active user of Twitter, Lauren Boebert, also an active user, Matt Gaetz.

Do they have an influence here? Jim Jordan, for example? Yeah, Matt Gaetz is very much in favor of these bills, and Jim Jordan is very much opposed to these bills. So there is a, within the Republican Party, there is a clear difference of opinion, I guess is the polite way of putting it, in terms of how folks see these bills moving forward. There are enough members to move bills forward with a larger majority of the Democrats. The only Democrats that I really see against these bills are folks from California, Democrats from California, and one or two from other locations. But for the most part, these bills are very popular in the Democrat Party. Do you try to convince someone like Lauren Boebert she's in your state? Yeah, I thought I had Lauren's vote on the last package of bills and was surprised that she didn't vote.

We've talked about it a little bit. I think there's a chance that Lauren Boebert and Marjorie and some others would vote for antitrust bills down the road. Are you trying to convince them? What's the problem to convince them? I've sat down with more than 80 Republican members and spent an hour, hour and a half with them going through the bills, talking about the threat from big tech. And that's really my job is to try to build a coalition within the Republican Party in Congress. And what is their biggest objection? What's the wall you face? Well, it's hard to really put in words. I think what they will voice is that the market will take care of itself. And so if you look at Instagram, TikTok has risen to challenge Instagram.

And there's a belief that maybe with artificial intelligence and the role that Microsoft is playing, that Bing will rise to challenge Google. And it's better to let the marketplace do that than it is to pass legislation that will restrict some of these companies' ability to merge or to discriminate against other companies. Yeah, it's interesting. I know that market argument. I hear it from the tech people all the time. And I'm always like, well, Microsoft, which is an enormous, one of the most valuable companies

in the world, is challenging them. Are they the upstart? Is that the real upstart we want? I just am sort of like, so in AI, it's now Google, Amazon, it's the same group of people fighting each other versus a new entrant. So let's talk about legislation to lawsuits. Right now, it is in the courts is where this is being fought out. So let's do a quick lightning round. You used to be a prosecutor. So I want your take on how prosecutors are approaching each case. The DOJ's lawsuit against Google's ad tech business, what do you make of Jonathan Cantor's filing? Yeah, I think it has a lot of promise. I think it is absolutely a monopoly.

And what do you think the chances of it are of winning, if you were to look at it? In a decade? That's the problem with these cases. The discovery takes five years, and then there's a couple years, you get a decision, it goes up the appellate chain. By that time, the world has dramatically changed. That's why it's so much more important from my perspective to pass laws than it is to bring cases. But I think that the Department of Justice has a very good opportunity to win that particular case. Okay. FTC's potential lawsuit against Amazon, it looks like Lena Kahn might file suit in the coming months. Do you want her to? Well, I'm not sure what the lawsuit involves, but if it is discrimination regarding the third-party

sellers, I think that is an anti-competitive act that would be looked upon favorably for action by a court. Okay. The FTC's also does have a lawsuit to break up Facebook. Thoughts on this? Yeah, I'm not sure. They had trouble defining what Facebook was and had to refile that. So I'm not sure exactly how they would break up Facebook. And I'm not in favor of breaking up Facebook as much as I am in favor of having competition for Facebook. Okay, what about Apple? There's no lawsuit in the U.S. yet, but this month the White House said they agree with Elon Musk and many others, Basecamp and others. The App Store's 30% commission is bad for competition. Well, the 30% commission for a company like Spotify, because Apple has Apple Music,

is clearly a way of trying to benefit their own product on a platform. If the platform wasn't a monopoly platform, I wouldn't have a problem. In other words, a grocery store can say, we're going to put our grape jelly at eye level, and we're going to put some competitors down lower so that people buy our grape jelly. Well, there's 30, 40 different kinds of grocery stores out there. I don't have a problem with that kind of platform discriminating. I do have a problem with the two phone companies discriminating, and much more so by Apple than Android.

So last question there, when it comes to competition, which of the big tech companies is the least problematic? What is the most from your perspective? Yeah, the most is clearly Google. What is the most from your perspective? Yeah, the most is clearly Google. Not only the search engine, but the other activities it engages in, particularly that ad, the digital ad area, I think is the most dangerous. I think Facebook is actually losing market share, and now it's still a huge company. I'm not suggesting that Facebook's going away anytime soon.

It's a metaverse thing. They keep wandering down metaverse alley, and it's causing some problems, taking their eye off the ball. I think Twitter and Facebook are less problematic than Google. And Amazon? Where's Amazon? Yeah, Amazon and Apple are sort of in the middle there. I think they're both. And again, it wouldn't take much to solve that problem. The non-discrimination bill clearly talked about you've got a monopoly platform. As long as you treat these other products fairly, that's what we're asking for. All right. I've got just a couple more questions about politics and then I'll let you go. But the upcoming debt ceiling standoff, you said do is to make sure that we don't go off the edge spending-wise, and that's what I'm concerned about. Obviously, we'll make sure that we are supporting paying our financial obligations, but how do we, in the meantime, not continue to rack up the national debt? Republicans want more military spending.

Democrats want more military spending. Democrats want more social spending. We both have to grow up and realize that until we produce more revenue in this country with a stronger economy, we can't keep spending at the rate that we are. All right, you flew to D.C. after a medical procedure to make sure Kevin McCarthy was elected as Speaker. It was very dramatic when I heard your name called. John Boehner and Paul Ryan had much larger majorities, and they had a very hard time wrangling the conference. There's been recent stories he's having a hard time wrangling the conference. What's been your advice to McCarthy? Yeah, I think that, you know, Republicans are a different breed. We don't fall in line. We argue. And I think that if Kevin leads a genuine path, he is going to get a lot of people that are going to follow him.

And I think that understanding that the Democrats have control of the Senate and the White House, there's not a whole lot we can do without working in a bipartisan way, as we have with the big tech bills. And I think we can with many other areas, but the messaging bills are great. And then they go away. The idea that we're going to do some of this oversight work and really raise this tension between the parties and between the branches of government, we're not going to get a whole lot of big things done if that's our focus. By the way, it was Republicans fall in line, Democrats fall in love. Just so you know, it's really fascinating to watch Republicans not fall in line, because I've always experienced them

as being much more better behaved than Democrats. One last question. You recently were overheard in a congressional elevator saying that kicking Ilhan Omar off the Foreign Affairs Committee was, quote, in this vein, the stupidest vote in the world. Please elaborate. You were, is it performance art to you? One of the, one of my fellow Republicans agreed with me, and he's one of those folks that you would never imagine, one, being overheard in an elevator, and two, agreeing on something like that.

But I think it just, it just sat wrong with a lot of members. Kicking Marjorie Taylor Greene off committees, we didn't believe was right. Kicking Paul Gosar off committees, we didn't believe was right. And so the idea that somehow we're going to seek revenge and kick Ilhan Omar off didn't sit right with me either. And so I went to Kevin and I said, you know, I'm not going to vote for this. I went to Kevin and I said, you know, I'm not going to vote for this. And after a number of discussions, he said, I will give you and a couple of other Republicans who aren't going to vote for this the opportunity to work with Democrats, change the rules so this doesn't happen in the future.

And I ended up voting for it with that understanding that this wouldn't continue down the road. So last question, if you're thinking about that, if they're spending a lot of time doing this, what is the chance of an antitrust bill in this Congress? I think it depends on the bill, but I think we will get one or two bills passed in this Congress. Harder to do in the House now than in the Senate. I think it was easier to do in the House the last Congress, but I do think we will get a couple of antitrust bills passed in this Congress. All right. Congressman Buck, thank you so much. I really appreciate it so much. Thank you, Cara.

It's good to be with you. Why does so much happen in the elevator of this Congress? Why do they talk in the elevators? Don't they understand everybody's listening? When I was a page,, I worked for a senator in Congress. I listened to everybody. When I was in college, my freshman year, Senator S.I. Hayek, how a Republican. I think I've said this too. I listened to everything. I was like always sneaking around and listening. Senate elevators where Jeff Flake got caught during the Kavanaugh hearing. Yeah. You have to get out of the elevators, you know, when there's a vote.

Take the stairs, Congress people, take the stairs. I don't think he minded getting overheard, honestly. He was thrilled to get overheard. He's a maverick type of person, just like a lot of Colorado Congress people. Meaning you don't know which way they're going to go. Yeah, I just like that. I like that. I mean, I think the stuff around Google was ridiculous. But I think directionally he's correct.

These people have too much power. And that's when we got to that, there's where you find common ground. It's like, this is like, look, we could argue about what's actually happening. And I'm someone who prefers actual proof. I was just flabbergasted that the only source he had for his kind of big claims around Google were conservative news publications. Yes. To make it into, to jump it into a conspiracy is just, you know, just like with me now on Twitter. I mean, I think they are suppressing it. I don't have any proof, but, you know, he whole idea that, oh, competition and free speech is going to take care of itself and people will just, you know, you can say anything and the truth will win.

Listen, the fact that we can argue about it means a lot. You can't argue about it in China, right? That's hardly the standard. I know that, of course not. But I'm just saying we do get to, people do get to make decisions on what they want to do. And I think the problem is all these conspiracy theorists are ridiculous on some level. You're around the age of the kind of broadcast channels, right? Of, you know, Walter Cronkite, et cetera, right? Yeah, you got to pick. Yeah, you got to pick. But there wasn't misinformation that was rampantly floating

around. I don't know. How were the stories told? Let me just say it was, you know, 26 white men on the Upper East Side of New York. Is that what we want? No, there was not a woman to be found. There wasn't a person of color on those. I was in those meetings. I was as an aide or whatever.

I'm just saying the more voices, the better. That said, the power is the problem. That's where we agree completely. The two men, there should be 10 Elon Musk, there should be 10 Googles, that kind of thing. Yeah, I agree. I think proliferation of competition, regulation of companies that have gotten too big and relics that are prohibiting the competition or buying them out or squashing them, that I think is great. Are you more hopeful or less hopeful about legislation passing after that conversation? I don't know if they can do it.

I would agree with them. I think the leadership didn't press it. I blame Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, honestly. If you recall, Klobuchar on stage at CODE basically said, Kara, I promise this will pass. Oh, it didn't pass. You know what, Kara? Never believe a promise from a politician.

I know, but she believed it. That's my free advice. She actually believed it. She believed it. She did. And she's not an earnest one, but she said promise from a politician. I know, but she believed it. That's my free advice. She actually believed it. She believed it. She did. And she's not an earnest one, but she said that very earnestly. And I said, no, they're going to get you, Senator Klobuchar. They got her.

The tech boogeyman who will not be called big tech. Anyways, Cara, will you read us out for today? Yes. Today's show was produced by Neha Miraza, Blake Neshek, Christian Castro-Rossell, Raffaella Seward. Special thanks to Haley Milliken. Rick Kwan engineered this episode, and our theme music is by Trackademics. Thank you. And go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher and hit follow in any case. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from New York Magazine, the Vox Media Podcast Network and us. We'll be back on Monday with more.