The Young Turks - Trust Issues

Episode Date: September 14, 2023

Trump privately discussed Biden impeachment with House GOP members. Bankruptcies at private equity-owned businesses are on track to reach decade highs with losses in health care leading the pack. The Democratic party's Wall Street donors are reportedly pushing Biden to fire Lina Khan. HOSTS: Ana Kasparian (@AnaKasparian) SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE: ☞ https://www.youtube.com/user/theyoungturks FACEBOOK: ☞ https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER: ☞ https://www.twitter.com/theyoungturks INSTAGRAM: ☞ https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK: ☞ https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕 Merch: https://shoptyt.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Welcome to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Kasparian. I got to say, we have a fantastic show ahead for you. I'm not the only one saying it. My producers are saying it. They say the first hour is insanely good. And we're going to talk a little bit about, well, the Wall Street war against the Federal Trade Commission's chair, Lena Kahn. Man, they are going to war against her because God forbid there be anyone leading a government agent. that actually looks out for ordinary Americans, I can't wait to get to that story. We'll also talk a little bit about how private equity firms are in big trouble due to rising interest rates. And as a result, a lot of the businesses they've invested in are going belly up. And that includes hospitals. So the healthcare industry is impacted by this tremendously.

I'll give you the details on that a little later. In the second hour of the show, Wozni Lombray will join me for some fun. We'll talk a little bit about a United States Congresswoman who literally got kicked out of a Broadway show for vaping while in the audience. And you heard that correctly. A United States congresswoman was the one who got kicked out. So lots of fun to get to in the second hour. But as always, just want to encourage you all to like and share the stream if you're watching us live on YouTube. It's an easy and free way to help support the show and the work that we do here. You can also help support the show by becoming a member by going to t.yt.com slash join or you can click on that join button if you're watching us

live on YouTube. All right, without further ado, let's get to our first story. A little bit of an update on this impeachment inquiry into Biden. Republicans better be careful because every time that Trump was impeached, his numbers went up. And every time he was indicted, his numbers went up because people didn't believe that this was warranted. Yes, Bill O'Reilly is still alive. He might sound like he's dead, but he's still alive. And what he's saying there is actually pretty true. If the Republican Party really does plan to pursue impeachment of Biden with no evidence of wrongdoing, he could be, the Republican Party could be in a lot of trouble in the next

election cycle. Now, it does look like Trump is one of the motivating factors behind Republican leadership's decision to pursue an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden. they're doing so again, despite the fact that there is absolutely no evidence so far indicating that Biden engaged in any wrongdoing or any impeachable offense. But this is a bit of a fishing expedition. The whole idea behind an impeachment inquiry would be to access certain financial records that they claim they don't have access to right now, even though they do. We'll get to that in just a moment. But first, let's go back to Donald Trump encouraging this and strategizing

around this behind the scenes. Politico reported that on Sunday night, Trump had dinner at his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey, with Representative Marjorie Taylor Green, an ally of Trump and Kevin McCarthy, of course, the House Speaker. At the gathering, the topic of impeachment was discussed, according to a person familiar with the conversation who spoke on condition of anonymity. But that's not all. Trump has also been strategizing with other GOP lawmakers, and it's not surprising that he would do this. And I'll explain why in a moment. Now, Trump has been speaking weekly with House GOP conference chair, Elise Stefanik, who was the first member of the Republican leadership to come out in support of impeachment. The two spoke Tuesday after House Speaker

Kevin McCarthy announced Republicans would be pursuing the inquiry. And that's according to two people familiar with that conversation. Now, again, none of this should be surprising. A, because of the fact that Trump very publicly has been demanding the impeachment of President Joe Biden. And Biden, he wrote on Truth Social, is a stone cold crook. You don't need a long inquiry to prove it. It's already proven. By the way, this is a post back in August. He continues to write that these low lives impeached me twice. I won. He was impeached twice, but the Republican-controlled Senate was unwilling to basically convict him of those impeachment charges. But Trump continues, and indicted me four times,

that's true. For nothing, that's untrue, either impeach the bum, meaning Biden, or fade into oblivion, they did it to us, Trump says. All right, so he's been publicly calling for this. He's obviously not happy that they're just calling for an impeachment inquiry. He, I guess, wants to have impeachment proceedings with absolutely no evidence. But the other reason why this is so unsurprising to me is if you can recall the first reason why Donald Trump was impeached by the House of Representatives, it was due to the fact that Trump had withheld congressionally appropriated military aid to Ukraine and wouldn't release that money until Zelensky agreed to go on national television and announce a sham investigation into Joe Biden. Now, Trump.

Trump knew that he was very likely going to run for reelection against Joe Biden. And he wanted to get a leg up in that election. So he thought that a sham investigation might actually help his chances with that. So a sham impeachment and sham impeachment inquiry in his mind, I'm sure, is something that could be helpful to him for the upcoming election. Now, the absolute best part about this entire story is that the Trump-era Department of Justice actually put out a rule regarding impeachment inquiries that might actually end up helping Joe Biden. Now, the whole point was to retaliate for the fact that Donald Trump had been impeached.

But remember, if a certain administration, let's say a Democratic administration, decides to engage in some bad behavior or engage in policymaking that they think will only benefit them, they should consider the fact that they're not going to be in power forever. The next executive branch might actually consist of Republicans who will take advantage of the new rules or the new directives, the new guidelines that the previous administration had brought to fruition. And in this case, you have the Trump DOJ putting out a rule that now Biden could benefit from. So what do I mean by that?

Well, apparently, in January of 2020, the Donald Trump-led Justice Department formally declared that impeachment inquiries by the House are invalid unless the chamber takes formal votes to authorize them. That opinion issued by the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel came in response to then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to launch an impeachment inquiry into Trump without initially holding a vote for it. Not only is it still on the books, it is binding on the current administration. Again, I just want to repeat, these rules are still binding, which means Kevin McCarthy is simply declaring an impeachment inquiry. is not enough. There needs to be a vote in the House for an impeachment inquiry. And in order for that to pass, Kevin McCarthy needs 218 Republicans to vote in favor of it. Now, that should seem easy considering the fact that Republicans currently control the House of Representatives. But they only do so by about four Congress members. And there are already a number of Republican Congress members

who, you know, are not in favor of this impeachment inquiry, and they see this as a political liability that could hurt their chances at getting reelected. They're also pretty well aware of the fact that the two separate House committees dominated by Republicans have failed to provide a shred of evidence incriminating Joe Biden. Now, the accusation by Republicans attempting to impeach him is that Joe Biden engaged in all sorts of shady business deals with foreign businessmen, okay? And that the go between was Hunter Biden. The idea is that he sold his influence in order to secure tens of millions of dollars for himself. Now, I am willing to believe those types of allegations, even if it's a Democratic president, if I see the evidence. But again,

that evidence has never come to fruition. So let's go back to the rules that were passed by the DOJ under the Trump administration. So Stephen Engel, who was the former head of the DOJ's office of legal counsel, said this at the time. We conclude that the House must expressly authorize a committee to conduct an impeachment investigation and to use compulsory process in that investigation before the committee may compel the production of documents or testimony. Now, back to McCarthy. McCarthy announces the impeachment inquiry this week, right?

McCarthy's announcement on Tuesday that an inquiry would be launched without a formal vote is expected to feature significant scrutiny of actions taken by the Justice Department, FBI, and IRS in relation to its investigation of Biden's son Hunter and his foreign business dealings, all three agencies would be bound by the Office of the Office of the, legal counsel's opinion. And that's the very opinion, again, that was passed down during the Trump administration as Donald Trump was facing impeachment. Now, Biden could choose to heed the OLC opinion or not. He would also have grounds to assert executive privilege that could tie up the GOP investigations

as part of this impeachment, which honestly, I don't think he should do. I really don't think that Biden's trying to hide anything. He shouldn't even give the appearance of attempting to hide anything. He should cooperate. However, Congress should vote on the impeachment inquiry. We should see whether or not McCarthy has the necessary. votes to actually open this impeachment inquiry in the first place. Now, it doesn't appear as if Biden or the White House is stressing any of this.

It's not even wall to wall on cable. A White House official said of the coverage of Speaker Kevin McCarthy's announcement that he would task the oversight, judiciary and ways and means committees to further investigate allegations, unproven still, that Biden used past offices to help his son's business ventures, that the launch of an impeachment inquiry would not merit more blaring headlines may reflect the lack of concrete evidence supporting the charges, an absence acknowledged by even some congressional Republicans. You know what, why don't we go to those congressional Republicans? I've been talking about them, right? These are the congressional Republicans who

are not buying what Kevin McCarthy and other Republican lawmakers like him are trying to sell. So let's hear what they have to say about all of this. Here is what Ken Biden. had to say about the push by some of his Republican colleagues, including Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green, to impeach President Biden. The time for impeachment is the time when there's evidence linking President Biden, if there's evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor. That doesn't exist right now. And it is really something that we can say, well, in February, we're going to do this.

It's based on the facts. You go where the facts take you. Two days ago, you said that the time for impeachment is when there's evidence linking President Biden to a high crime or misdemeanor. You said, quote, that doesn't exist right now. Do you still feel that way tonight? I have not seen any of it. It's a link President Biden to Hunter Biden's activities at this point. And over on the Senate side, there is not much enthusiasm either. Republican senators is Shelley More Capito, Mitt Romney, Jerry Moran, Mike Rounds, Mitch McConnell, and even the extremely Maga Tommy Tubberville have all thrown water on the idea of impeaching Biden before the 2024 election.

Sad. So I'm really curious to see if the DOJ is going to hold Congress, the House of Representatives in particular, to holding a vote in regard to whether or not they move forward with the impeachment inquiry. And if they do hold that vote, I mean, based on what we're hearing by several GOP lawmakers, it might not go through. And even Nancy Mace, who's a more moderate Republican, confesses the evidence isn't there, but we should do the impeachment inquiry anyway? Let's hear her argument.

Isn't it supposed to be the evidence that leads you to pursue impeachment and an impeachment inquiry? Well, that's what the inquiry is for. But there's already more evidence. I think that's where people are confused because it's not like there's no investigation. We don't have Joe Biden's bank records yet. And so one way to do that, my understanding would be through an impeachment inquiry. So if that's what gets us those bank records, then I'm going to support it.

I'm just saying, if you could see what I have seen, and I believe you should, you deserve to see that. But have you seen direct evidence related to President Biden, because that's what we have not heard. Well, we have to connect the dots, and that has to be through the bank records. If his bank records show nothing, the American people should know that too. And you think it's worth launching that to get to that? I do. If that's what gets us the bank records, that's what we should. On the impeachment side, you know, the House would investigate.

The Senate would essentially hold a trial. But no, I mean, the Senate's not going to hold a trial. There's not going to be 60 votes. It's not happening. It is, it's window addressing on impeachment. But an inquiry is an investigative tool. That's the difference between an impeachment vote and an inquiry. We don't have the evidence.

But we should do the impeachment inquiry anyway, which, by the way, appears politically motivated, looks bad for the Republican Party. We should do it anyway because we need access to financial records, right? Except they have access to quite a few financial records. On Monday, for instance, the Democrats released a 14-page memo detailing what they called the overwhelming failure of the Republicans' investigation into Biden, noting that the Oversight Committee has received more than 12,000 pages of subpoenaed bank records, reviewed more than 2,000 pages of suspicious activity reports and spent hours interviewing

witnesses, including two of Hunter Biden's former business associates. One of them, by the way, was Devin Archer, who did not tell them what they were hoping to hear. But none of the bank records released so far show any payment to the president. So look, if we lived in a sane world and if we had a sane government, I would be fine with the impeachment inquiry, if they went through with it, looked at whatever additional documents they want to look at, and realize that there's really no there there and moved on. But that's not going to happen. We're going to be hearing about the sham impeachment endlessly, day in, day out,

as the members of Congress who have no interest in actually governing and legislating and improving your life, give you the illusion of governing, give you the illusion of governing. Give you the illusion of actually doing something to benefit your life. And look, it's the same with the Democrats, right? The Russia investigation went on too long. There was a lot of smoke, but there was no fire. And it was a giant waste of time and resources. I will admit to that.

I really hope that there will come a day where the Republican voters who have been told that this is one of the most important investigations of all time, realize that they also, much like Democratic voters, have been scammed by members of their own party sitting in the, you know, or sitting walking, talking in the halls of Congress. It's frustrating. This is what politics is basically devolved to at this point. But again, if something does turn up, if there is some evidence to show that President Joe Biden engaged in illegal corruption, despite the fact that there is plenty of legal corruption, baked into our system here in the United States, I'll be the first to raise my hand and say,

wow, look, this investigation turned up some evidence of wrongdoing. But so far, it seems like a massive waste of time. And just going back to what Bill O'Reilly said, it could actually hurt the Republican Party by getting Democratic voters fired up enough to head out to the polls and vote for Biden. Same with some independence as well. So be careful what you wish for. You might actually get what you're asking. And if this impeachment inquiry turns into impeachment proceedings, I really don't think it's going to play out so well for the Republican Party. All right, we got to take a break. When we come back, more news for you, one of the stories that I've been dying to share. We're going to talk about how private equity firms are destroying hospitals

and causing them to shut down across the country. We'll be right back. Welcome back to TYT. I'm your host, Anna Casparian, and I'm really excited for this next block. I know it's a little dense, but it's on two topics that are super important. So buckle up. Let's talk about private equity. Private equity owned businesses have been going belly up at a pretty rapid and concerning pace, ever since the Federal Reserve started to increase interest rates. The troubling trend will likely lead to job losses and more economic pain for workers, especially when you consider how massive some of these firms really are.

The Blackstone Group this summer became the first firm to cross $1 trillion in assets. The industry now accounts for about $1.7 trillion of the U.S. GDP and their businesses employ some 12 million workers, according to its own. estimates. But the biggest impact could be on the country's health care system, where private equity made investments as part of their profit maximizing business strategy. Private equity firms use the pooled money to invest in existing companies that are typically private or not publicly traded. Then they look for ways to improve a company's performance or value, often trying to squeeze more juice out of them to maximize profit, and then flip them

quickly, generally in three to seven years. It can be tiring work managing the business side of a practice. So more and more doctors have partnered with or sold their practices to private equity funds. Why would this be attractive to investors? The sprawling ecosystem of physician practices lets them enter a market and quickly consolidate smaller practices under unified management to save money. So look, as you can tell from that video, private equity's role in our health care system was already bad enough because the firms took a for-profit model and put it on steroids to maximize revenue and profits for themselves, of course. That led to staff shortages, subpar care due to corners being cut, and even hospital closures

due to consolidation. But now private equity firms that took on debt to invest in the healthcare sector are struggling with their loans following the Federal Reserve's decision to raise interest rates. Political reports that historically low interest rates following the global financial crisis allowed the firms to finance acquisitions with cheap floating rate debt. That didn't matter when the economy was humming and inflation was low, but now higher interest payments have started to put pressure on them. About two thirds of the $1.4 trillion in the leveraged loan market, which is composed of riskier debt,

wasn't hedged to protect against possible losses from higher rates, according to Oak Tree Capital Management's Armand Panosian and Danielle Polly, who wrote in a recent research note. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era.

It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca. Now, these borrowers might need a break from their lenders. I mean, normal people don't get breaks, but, or their private equity backers, and that could further limit the capital available for new deals. I just love, like as soon as private equity might be in some financial trouble, there are calls for lenders to take it easy on them. Now, those challenges have been particularly noticeable among health care companies. A prominent example was Envision Healthcare, a physician staffing and ambulatory surgery

business that was acquired by KKR for $5.5 billion in 2018. The company cited declining patient volumes, wage inflation during COVID-19, and battles with insurance providers when it filed for Chapter 11 back in May. According to S&P global market intelligence data, while bankruptcies at businesses owned by private equity are in fact rising, the losses in health care are at the very top of that list. But it would be a huge mistake to take what these firms allege at face value. So if you're under the impression that private equity takes out these loans in order to invest in improving hospitals rather than pay their executives, I've got a bridge to sell you. In fact, just take a look at what Prospect Medical did to Delaware County Memorial Hospital in Pennsylvania, which shut down just last year. Delaware County Memorial was part of a non-profit Pennsylvania health system that was in danger of failing when it was purchased in 2016 by Prospect Medical Holdings, a Los Angeles-based for-profit company.

With the backing of private equity investors, Prospect Medical's portfolio would by 2018 grow to 20, hospitals in six states. After the Pennsylvania purchase, the company had promised to invest $200 million to dramatically increase service to the community. They tried to tell us that they were going to run us the same way. We don't worry, trust us. Did they actually say that to you? Instead, Napolitano says prospect medical dismantled the hospital piece by piece, leading to longer waits in the ER and forcing staff to transfer more patients to other hospitals. They have on cutting services. Things wouldn't get fixed.

Our elevator in the back of the emergency room, been broken for over a year. Holes and walls. Of the 20 hospitals owned by Prospect Medical, five have closed, including this 89-year-old hospital in San Antonio, laying off more than 500 workers. It's just absolutely disgusting. One of the things that these private equity firms do is they take out these massive loans and allege that they're going to use those loans. to improve the businesses that they've purchased or the hospitals in this case that they've

purchased. Instead, what they do with the money is they pay themselves. And they pay their investors massive dividends, huge returns on investment. And by the way, Pennsylvania, as you saw in that video, wasn't the only state where prospect medical got caught with its hand in the cookie jar. They've driven hospitals in other states into unmanageable debt so their executives can run off with a fortune, even as the same facility shut down. Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Nirona says what's happening in Pennsylvania is what prospect medical tried to do in his state, where he says the company drove two hospitals deep into debt.

Their hospitals were in real danger of closing. In 2019, Naurona investigated a proposed company transaction, invoking state law to force prospect medical to turn over its financials and found it put every hospital in its system at risk of reduction in services, sale, or closure? Did they say, look, there was a pandemic. Who could have predicted that? And that's really largely responsible. Well, this had nothing to do with the pandemic. Hospitals all over the country were facing the pandemic. But the problems here were exacerbated, frankly, by greed. Two different outside experts followed the money and discovered one reason why the

company was so far in the red, summed up in a ruling by Nerona. In 2018, the owners of Prospect medical took out a $1.12 billion loan using proceeds to pay themselves and their private equity shareholders of $457 million dividend. Let me repeat that. They took out a $1.2 billion loan to pay their executives hundreds of millions of dollars. I'm sorry, they're investors, I should say, hundreds of millions of dollars in dividends. Okay. So they saddle these hospitals with all this debt, not to improve them, not to invest in them, but to pay themselves, to enrich themselves. And then they turn around and say, oh, no, oh, the pandemic, oh, the rising interest rates are really hurting us. They had no interest in improving these hospitals, maintaining

these hospitals. All they cared about was raping and pillaging these hospitals and private businesses, by the way, all across the country. That's exactly what happened with Toys R Us. And other brands that I grew up with, that I grew up loving, all those businesses that shut down, partly shut down due to the greed of private equity, saddling those businesses with unmanageable debt. Now, this is clearly a serious problem. And it's putting the lives of Americans in jeopardy just so Wall Street goons can game the system and enrich themselves. So what the hell is Congress doing about this? For one, there's been an ill-fated bipartisan effort to force these firms to disclose more information about their debt and ownership structures.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee unanimously passed a bill led by Republican Chair Kathy McMorris Rogers of Washington in the spring that would require certain private equity-backed businesses to disclose more information about their operations. And that's it. Just a little disclosure, okay, no talk of enforcement mechanisms, no talk of actual regulations to protect hospitals and patients from this disgusting, unmitigated greed. And even these impotent measures are unlikely to go anywhere. While that bill made it out of committee, it stalled in the House. Of course it did. But don't worry, congressional lawmakers are at least pretending to be concerned as they

propose weak regulations that they don't even fight for. Pramila Jayapal, who's the leader of the House Progressive Caucus, told Politico that I'm very worried that we're going to see more closures and also that we're going to see worse health outcomes. We're talking about life and death situations. Yeah, she absolutely shouldn't be worried. We are talking about life and death situations. I mean, she and the 104 members of the House Progressive Caucus should have maybe considered reining in private equity firms before things got out of control. but they didn't. Hospitals are already shutting down and filing for bankruptcy. Federal agencies are looking into the matter as well, and it does seem that they're having a little more success on the disclosure front. The Securities and Exchange Commission under

hard charging chair, Gary Gensler, last month finalized the most sweeping investment transparency rule ever for the industry, forcing firms to give investors more clarity on how their companies perform, as well as well the fees they charge to boost their own balance sheets. You caught that, right? Even in this case, notice how the disclosures are meant to help the investors rather than protect hospitals and patients. Look, I get that it's the SEC and that's their whole role in this pretty gross system. But it certainly says something that Congress, the regulatory body that's supposed to protect us, the American people, is so inefficient, negligent, and useless, while efforts to protect investors tend to go smoothly.

Kind of shows you what our current government values and prioritizes, doesn't it? All right. Well, I know that was a downer, but it's important to know what's actually going on with private equity, why these hospitals are closing. And when you come across a story that alleges that rising interest rates is really the reason why you're seeing these hospitals shut down, make sure you're armed with the actual information to fight back against that BS narrative. because that's exactly what it is. B.S. Businesses and hospitals were shutting down well before the pandemic as a result of private equity

and their greed, as a result of them taking out unmanageable debt in order to enrich themselves. Let's move on to something a little different. I wanted to talk about, well, something that's actually going right in our government and how there is a big fight against it over at Wall Street. Our problem here today, my problem here today, is that you're a bully. You've taken the idea that companies should have to be less competitive in order to merge, that every merger has to be somehow bad for the company and good for the consumer, a standard that cannot be met.

That was Republican Congressman Daryl Issa, being a good boy for his corporate donors. See, that was during a hearing with Federal Trade Commission chair, Lena Khan. Issa issued the hearing to parrot or use the hearing, I should say, to basically parrot Wall Street's complaints about the FTC being far too aggressive in challenging mergers by massive corporations. These mergers crush competition and monopolize markets. That translates to less options and higher prices for consumers. But it also means big profits for corporate America. As a result, corporate executives ain't loving the fact that there's finally a cop on the beat and deep pocketed donors to both the Democratic and Republican parties

are taking some action. According to the Financial Times, Khan's willingness to challenge corporate consolidation and industries from gaming to pharmaceuticals to semiconductors has drawn the ire of big business. So Wall Street is calling on President Joe Biden to run Khan out of town if he wants to get reelected. FT's James Fontanella Khan writes that anybody talking to dealmakers over the past year or so will have noticed that barely anyone has been capable of hiding their loathing for Khan. In private, financiers accuse her of being anti-American and against business. Several Wall Street donors to the Democratic Party are using their position of influence to quietly lobby Biden to drop Kahn if he gets reelected,

according to people briefed on the matter. That's how badly they want her out of the FTC. When you hear Kahn's philosophy on what makes a functioning economy robust, you'll understand why major corporations absolutely despise her. Khan holds the post she does at such a young age, in part because she wrote an influential law article arguing that, Amazon was becoming like the trusts of the gilded age. She says that in an age of behemots, the government had to take a more active role ensuring competition. There's been a whole set

of empirical research showing that markets have become more concentrated. I think people in their day-to-day lives realize that if you're looking to, you know, book a flight, oftentimes, you know, you don't have too many options. If you're looking to buy a concert ticket, you don't have too many options. Big picture our efforts to enforce the laws that Congress charged us with. The antitrust laws, the laws prohibiting unfair methods of competition are squarely focused on businesses practices that are raising prices for people. I should note, by the way, that Lena Khan has taken the issue of investing in individual stocks very seriously and has decided against investing in individual stocks, as long as she is the chair of this government agency.

I think that says a lot about her and what her priorities are. And by the way, Khan isn't messing around either. We're all used to politicians and government bureaucrats doling out tough talk with little action to back up what they're saying. But that's definitely not the case with con. Over the last century, we've seen time and time again that when we have robust antitrust enforcement and robust competition, that really sets us up best to have the strongest, most thriving economy. In 2021, the year Khan was sworn in as chair, the FTC issued 42 letters of investigation over M&A. That's almost twice the amount in 2020 and the highest in more than a decade. When the FTC does investigations, they tie up their own resources and they sort of tie a deal in

knots for as long as a year. And investigating more deals can slow down the merger market overall. wrong. More important is the chilling effect that they're having on M&A activity in general. It definitely has had a chilling effect on mergers and acquisitions. And perhaps the most important element of Kahn's leadership are her efforts in strengthening guidelines on mergers and acquisitions. The FTC has helped rewrite pro-consolidation merger guidelines that were established during the Reagan era. Launched a probe into big. tech's cloud computing businesses and this is my favorite proposed a ban on exploitative non-compete agreements con has even more substantive wins under her belt too including a settlement involving

pharmaceutical company amgen's 28 billion dollars the new bemo v i porter mastercard is your ticket to more more perks more points more flights more of all the things you want in a travel rewards card and then some get your ticket to more with the new bemo v i porter mastercard and get up to $2,400 in value in your first 13 months terms and conditions apply visit bimo dot com slash the i porter to learn more or acquisition of horizon therapeutics it was the f tc's first challenge to a pharmaceutical deal in more than a decade which goes to show you how useless the ftc had become prior to Khan's tenure. While the acquisition will go through,

Khan managed to secure some very important concessions throughout her suit. In Amgen's case, the FTC argued that the big pharma group could get buyers to favor Horizon's drugs by bundling them with its own best medicines. Now, under the resolution, which Con secured, Amgen promised not to bundle two of Horizon's drugs. Eleanor Fox, who's an expert in competition policy at NYU School of Law, argues that this is a win for con and American consumers, saying that Amgen was not a defeat at all. It was a settlement. And the FTC got restrictions that it wanted. It did not get to enjoin the merger. But that partial victory is the nature of a settlement. So it's really no surprise that Wall Street is dangling money above Biden's head like a cream. with mistletoe on Christmas Eve. They provided quite a bit of cash in the last election cycle. And unfortunately for us, corporate Democrats like Biden really like that corporate money.

Now, Wall Street spent over $74 million in support of Biden in 2020. And industry executives at the urging of the president's team have hosted fundraisers this year for his reelection campaign. And by the way, Lena Khan wouldn't be in the position that she's in today if it weren't for Biden. So credit to President Biden for picking her to be the chair of the FTC. It would really, really hurt his reputation if he decided to essentially listen to the demands of Wall Street and oust her from this government agency. And another way in which Wall Street and their congressional lapdogs are trying to destroy Khan is by accusing her of being a loser? I know, I know. Strong words from businessmen who have to game the system

to turn a profit, or from lawmakers who waste much of their time reciting genderqueer in congressional hearings. I'm going to give you the blowjob of your life. Then I want you inside of me. Sorry, I had to weave in that fun little nugget. Khan is someone who challenges mergers and sometimes loses. The fact that she tries at all is a huge change and improvement from what we had before. Under Khan's leadership, the FTC has taken legal action against several prominent merger proposals, including Microsoft's $69 billion deal to acquire Activision Blizzard, a case the agency paused after recent court defeats. But just stop and think about what the implied directive is here from her detractors. Don't even try to challenge murder.

and acquisitions because you might lose in court. Look, Khan is working with the laws she's been tasked to enforce. And unfortunately, antitrust laws were weakened significantly under the Reagan administration. Eleanor Fox from NYU sheds light on this unfortunate fact while speaking with the financial times, saying that our antitrust law is very conservative, making it hard for plaintiffs, in this case the FTC to win. and the FTC and DOJ are fighters to try to push back a very long, very big, business-friendly orientation.

James Katie, who serves as the director of the Fordham Competition Law Institute, agrees with this, saying that Lena Khan uses litigation, if necessary, as a platform to try and return, in her view, antitrust law to its original purpose of preventing industry consolidation or post-merger abuse. And Khan isn't done yet. She's planning on filing a major antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, which she has long argued operates as a monopoly. It's no surprise that actually enforcing antitrust laws would ruffle the feathers of crony capitalists. It's also not much of a shocker that corporate media has basically helped bolster the grievances of corporate America. Take the Wall Street Journal as an example whose right wing editorial board consistently

fuels outrage against Khan. The publication has run dozens of pieces attacking the FTC chairs work this year alone. In reality, Khan's effectiveness can be summed up by this take in the financial times. Deal making volume in dollar terms has fallen significantly since she became chair of the FTC, but the overall number of transactions is above average over the past decade. What that shows is that big companies have shied away from doing mega deals, but smaller acquisitions have gone ahead as they probably posed less of a threat. That sounds like the FTC for the first time in a long time is doing its job. And they're doing their job under the leadership of Lena Khan.

The fact that Wall Street is so furious with her and the fact that corporate members of Congress, like Daryl Issa, are calling her a bully, is really a badge of honor, especially in today's political climate, where the business interests tend to reign supreme. So good for Lena Khan and good for Joe Biden for deciding to choose her to be the chair of this government agency.

Again, if he decides to listen to the demands of his don't, owners, I'll change my commentary in regard to Biden. But for now, this is one of the good elements of the major mixed bag of the Biden administration. We got to take a break when we come back. We're going to give you a little bit of an update on the pharmaceutical drugs that the Medicare system will be negotiating. Turns out that the legislation Congress passed to lower drug prices was even weaker than we suspected. That and more coming up. Don't miss it. Welcome back to the show, everyone. I wanted to talk a little bit or give you a bit of an update in regard to Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and what Democrats really like to celebrate in regard to lowering drug prices. Now, initially, the plan was to do something pretty, I think, which should be standard,

allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices with the pharmaceutical companies. That is not the same as the government setting prices. It's just allowing the government to negotiate prices. That got whittled down to allowing for about 10 drugs to be negotiated by Medicare. So that sounds pretty weak, right? But it's not as weak as you think. It's even weaker than that. So that's the update.

That's the story we're about to do. Let's get right to it. We pay more for prescription drugs than any other major economy in the world. And unlike other parts of the health care system, Big Pharma got a special carve-out that stopped Medicare from negotiating prices of drugs through Medicare. But this is finally, finally, finally, we had enough votes by a matter of one to beat Big Pharma. Well, we did it. Did you? Not really. So a provision in the Inflation Reduction Act gives Medicare the ability to negotiate the price of 10 pharmaceutical drugs.

10. That's the restriction. There's another part of that restriction, by the way. They can start the negotiations beginning in 2026. Now, due to the conditions of that bill, due to the terms of that legislation, it might not have as much teeth as we previously thought. And to be sure, I previously thought that the watered down Medicare drug negotiation provision was pretty damn weak. Now, the selected drug list for the first round of negotiations goes as follows. There's Alequist, there's Jardians, Zarelto, Genuvia, Farziga, just great, great names. Entresto, Enbrel, imbruvica, Stellara, and multiple Novo Nordisk insolence.

Okay, so those are the first round of drugs that will be negotiated. And it turns out that hypothetically, this would help out a lot of Americans. That's what Democrats have been kind of campaigning on. That's what Biden was bragging about in that video that you just saw. But that's not necessarily the case. So let's go to the next video and then I'll explain. Catherine Bristol's diabetes medication costs up to $200 a month. She says sometimes that means she can't afford to buy groceries.

I shouldn't have to choose between my medicine to keep me not going blind, not eating, dipping into my rent. Bristol takes Genuvia, one of 10 drugs that could be cheaper after negotiations between the government and drug manufacturers. They're used to treat a range of illnesses, including heart failure, blood clots, and arthritis. A new report shows about 9 million seniors and Medicare's prescription drug program used one or more of the drugs last year, paying $3.4 billion out of pocket. So as you can see, from that video, this is a serious problem. So a lot of Americans could stand to benefit from these particular drugs, you know, basically being negotiated for lower prices, specifically for

Medicare patients, right? That's what the provision entails. But nonetheless, still some positive benefits, even though it is a limited number of drugs and it only has to do with the Medicare system. Okay, fine. But even as, even though some drug companies have challenged this in the courts. Big Pharma isn't actually really worried about these drugs being negotiated. Why is that? Well, is David Dayn over at the American Prospect reports? The day that the Biden administration revealed the first 10 drugs under its Medicare price negotiation process, the companies that own and market those drugs saw their stock prices go up. Today is a non-event, said one industry analyst. And part of the reason is because the actual negotiated prices won't take effect until

2026. So what does that mean? It means that there will be some generic options available by that time. So negotiating for lower drug prices is kind of moot at that point. I didn't think about that when the provision first passed. When the provision first passed, the only thing I think about is how pathetic it is that we live in a system that won't allow for Medicare to simply negotiate all drug prices with pharmaceutical companies. But it's even worse than that. Since it won't take effect until 2026, a lot of these drugs are already going to have a generic option available. Okay, so the provision effectively does little. Okay, so as David Dane reports, according to the Inflation Reduction Act, drugs eligible for price negotiation must be single source.

In other words, they must be essentially a monopoly product without generic competition. If a drug gets that competition between the time of being selected for negotiation and the time the new prices take effect, that drug drops out of the negotiation program. Because why would you need to negotiate? There's cheaper options available. Medicare is going to go for the generic cheaper options, right? Now, the drugs must also be among the 50 highest expenditures under Medicare Part D. And under the rules of the law, the administration cannot, okay, cannot select another drug to get the number back up to 10.

All that means that the 10 drugs being negotiated could be whittled down to 8 or 6 or even fewer, which makes me wonder, how intentional was it when they decided that the drug, lower drug prices would go into effect in 2026? Seems like that was intentional. And when they chose these 10 drugs, did they not look at the patents for these drugs to figure out when the patents run out and when other companies can put out generic versions of the drugs? Were they really that ignorant that they didn't look into that and maybe consider the ramifications of choosing drugs that by 2026 would have generic versions available? Isn't that amazing? I mean, the games that members of Congress play, including the Democrats, and I really, really want to drive that

point home, right? This was policy championed by the Democratic Party, the party that wants you to believe that they're looking out for the little guy. The party that would have you believe that they are concerned about health care costs. They are concerned about ordinary Americans who are unable to afford the pharmaceutical drugs they need to live good lives, healthy lives, to live at all in some cases. Behind the scenes, as they're doing their wheeling and dealing, not only do they water down policy that they initially pretended like they wanted to fight for, the policy they ended up passing was more than just watered down. It's beyond ineffective. And I can't help but feel

that it was on purpose. Look, that's my speculation. But come on, come on, the government, with all their resources, how is it that they chose these specific drugs without looking into their patents? Now, to be clear, whether those drugs get cheaper through the Medicare negotiations or through generic options being available. It won't matter much to the actual consumer, right? To the actual patient, because the point is the drugs will be cheaper, and that's overall a good thing. But my point is, the drugs would have been cheaper without the policy, because the generic versions would be available.

So they should have chosen other drugs to make up their 10 drugs, the 10 drugs that the Medicare system can begin negotiating. And since the administration is by law not allowed to select additional drugs for the 2026 negotiations, the impact of the legislation, again, is even weaker than it originally seemed. And originally, it seemed pretty damn weak. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid services cannot select a drug for negotiation until get a load of this, seven years after its launch for small molecule drugs and up to 11 years after launch for so-called. biologics. In the future, this will incentivize higher launch prices so drug companies can make

back their investment early before the government can react. I'm just going to pause to like let the pain fade a little bit before I continue. So in other words, the policy might actually end up being a net negative because pharmaceutical companies might price And look, pharmaceutical companies are allowed to price couch, right? I mean, what option do you have as a patient? If you need a particular drug to survive, to live, you might go bankrupt, but you're going to do what it takes to get your hands on that medication. And pharmaceutical drugs are pharmaceutical companies that make these drugs are going to take full advantage of that. They've already been taking full advantage of that. And now, peering into the future, they know that there's a possibility that the Medicare system

would want to negotiate for lower drug prices, and they'll just price gouge in the front end and deal with the situation that way. I mean, it is just a complete, and utter disaster. If ever there was an argument in favor of raining in our privatized healthcare model, this is a perfect story to show you exactly why it needs to happen. And since drugs with competitive generics cannot be considered for negotiation, I mean, why would they be considered? they have generic options. One tactic the drug companies could use is to invite faux competition.

So a generic alternative that isn't heavily marketed or priced aggressively in order to ward off negotiation. So Steve Knievel, an advocate with public citizens access to medicines program says this. Let's take a look. He says, quote, CMS is being very clear that articulate, very clear in articulating that they will be critical about ensuring that bonafide marketing is actually taking place. CMS won't consider it sufficient just for a product to have a generic or biosimilar that, yeah, biosimilar that has received approval from the FDA. But it's not actually exactly clear what CMS considers bona fide marketing. So let's look at the drugs currently on the negotiation list that may be irrelevant by the time we hit

2026. So there's Stellara, which by the way, currently costs about $119,951 a year if you do not have insurance. It's a medication for plaque psoriasis. I actually have that condition. It's an awful condition. This is a very expensive drug. In fact, healthcare companies refuse to provide coverage for it. You have to go through a ton of ridiculous treatments, including going to tanning salons, going on a gluten-free diet, which I'm sure. people in Hollywood love, but I'm not into that. You have to go through all of this stuff and all of those faux ridiculous treatments need to fail before your health insurance company is willing to provide coverage for this drug.

So I just want to give you that background information on it. Okay. There is a high likelihood of market entry from a biosimilar competitor in January of 2025 before the 26th rollout of newly negotiated prices. There is also expected to be competition for Zareldo, a blood clot drug in 2025. And by 2026, 25 different competitors could be making generics for Genuvia, a diabetes drug, on the negotiation list. And Tresto, taken to prevent heart failure, should also have a generic competition by then. So it's theoretically possible that by the time we get to 2026, only three drugs,

Enbrel, imbrivica, and Elquist, the latter two are patent protected until 2031, will escape generic competition and will therefore be eligible for price negotiation. In reality, that number will likely be higher, but it's very likely that it won't be 10. So there you have it. Games. All sorts of games being played with our lives through this BS list. legislation that Democrats are certainly going to want to campaign on. They're going to be bragging about it. We lowered your drug prices. But did they? Did they really? I'd venture to say they

didn't. And when you take a look at how it was written, how it was watered down, and now how generics come into play and basically void the negotiations for many of these drugs on the list, you kind of get a sense of how they try to pull a fast one on us. But luckily we have real journalists like David Day and looking into the matter and telling us the truth about what's likely going to happen by the time we reach 2026. There's a good reason why the stock values of these pharmaceutical companies went up after the list was announced. They worried about a damn thing because in a neoliberal system, the government does work. It works on behalf of the corporations, not on behalf of the American citizens. And we need to change that. All right, that does it for the

second, for the first hour, for the second hour, uh, Wozni Lombrey joins me. Uh, there's a story that I want to share with you all about Kevin McCarthy, basically striking back against a fellow Republican Matt Gates. We'll tell you what that drama's about and more when we come back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen ad free. Access members, only bonus content and more by subscribing to Apple podcast at apple.com at apple.com slash TYT. I'm your

I'll see you soon.