Paramount Skydance wants to merge with Warner Bros. Discovery in a $111 billion deal that would put even more of Hollywood—and two major newsrooms—under one corporate roof.
Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown joins Nick and Goldy to explain why a coalition of states is suing to stop it, how they forced Paramount to pause the merger, and why state attorneys general are increasingly stepping in as the federal government retreats from antitrust enforcement. They also discuss the successful fights against Live Nation–Ticketmaster and Kroger–Albertsons—and what happens when corporations become powerful enough to escape competition.
Nick Brown is the Attorney General of Washington State.
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Further reading:
Washington Post – Washington state is suing Paramount. Here’s why.
Washington State Office of the Attorney General
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Nick Hanauer:
The rising inequality and growing political instability that we see today are the direct result of decades of bad economic theory.
Goldy:
The last five decades of trickle-down economics haven’t worked, but what’s the alternative?
Nick Hanauer:
Middle out economics is the answer because the middle class is the source of growth, not its consequence. That’s right.
Announcer:
This is Pitchfork Economics with Nick Hanauer, a podcast about how to build the economy from the middle out. Welcome to the show.
Nick Hanauer:
Goldy, these days, corporate mergers always come with the same sales pitch, right? It’s going to be better for everybody. When we get bigger, we’re going to eliminate duplication, unlock efficiencies. Consumers are going to benefit, workers are going to benefit, everybody’s going to benefit, but those promises have never, ever come to pass. And now Paramount wants to merge with Warner Brothers Discovery in a $111 billion deal, which combines some of the most important news channels in the world and et cetera.
Goldy:
Yeah, give Barry Weiss control of CNN too.
Nick Hanauer:
Exactly.
Goldy:
That’s great for American democracy. Because it took her no time to destroy CBS News.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s right. Yeah.
Goldy:
She’s got plenty of time on her hand now.
Nick Hanauer:
Exactly. And the wonderful Ellisons.
Goldy:
The Ellisons, yeah.
Nick Hanauer:
Anyway, these promises are consistently untrue. And of course, given that if there’s a dumb thing to do, they will do it, the Trump administration’s Justice Department has backed away from preventing this merger. And I guess to my surprise, a whole bunch of states got together, including our own Washington State, to oppose this merger, which I think is incredibly exciting because it gives you hope that all is not lost when it comes to these things.
And today we get to talk to Washington State’s Attorney General, Nick Brown, who has joined in a multi-state lawsuit to block this about the work that they’re doing with other states and why they’re doing it and how they’re doing it and so on and so forth. It’s very timely and very interesting.
Goldy:
Right, right. Especially timely on the heels of not only filing the suit, getting the temporary injunction they asked for, and reaching an agreement with Paramount to actually put the merger on pause until at least June, unless they come up with some agreement beforehand. So let’s talk to Nick and find out how that happened.
Nick Hanauer:
Yep.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
My name is Nick Brown. I’m the Washington State Attorney General, and I have nothing to plug today other than the great work in this office.
Goldy:
Unusual for a guest on this pod.
Nick Hanauer:
Yeah, but you have something to plug, which is you wrote in the Washington Post recently that our state, Washington, is suing to block the Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers Discovery merger, whatever it is, this giant thing. And listeners of this podcast are acquainted with our views on corporate consolidation, that it is most generally bad, but why don’t you just kind of explain to the listeners what you’re doing and why you’re doing it?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, we were happy to co-lead this case going against Paramount and Warner Brothers for their proposed $110 billion merger that essentially would take two of the five largest movie producers in the country and merge it into one entity. We worked on this case with California as the lead and 10 other states to challenge this action. And we did so because the Department of Justice refused to take any action against this type of merger.
And in broad strokes, we’re challenging three aspects of the proposed merger, two which impact the theater and movie distribution against mega high distribution films. And then the other aspect is around the merger that would impact basic cable channels. And we did so because it reduces competition, it reduces choices for consumers, has an impact on the workforce and looked to us like a violation of the federal antitrust laws.
Nick Hanauer:
Can you start by telling us, and I may be the only person surprised, tell us more about states having the standing to challenge this? Because I naively thought that if the federal government gave up, that was that. But apparently this is not true.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, it’s definitely not. And increasingly you’re seeing states step into this enforcement role on a much larger scale than they had. But this has been a part of many state attorney general’s offices for many years now, including Washington State. We have one of the most successful and robust antitrust divisions in the country because we have taken action to counter both mergers that are happening in our state, so only with Washington State companies, and also against mega mass corporation mergers on a national level. And so we have standing because we advocate on behalf of consumers in our state, both on state and federal grounds.
So in this case, this proposed merger, even though it doesn’t involve corporations that are based here in Washington, it would undoubtedly have an impact on Washingtonians, both consumers and our workforce here that work in this industry. And that gives us standing because of the harm to that class of people and that group of people. And so in this particular case, we’re filling in the void of the Department of Justice to enforce federal antitrust laws, but there are also cases where we’re doing actions purely on state law.
Nick Hanauer:
Interesting. Now, of course, the folks who want to merge, they’re making these arguments, this is going to be better for everybody. It’s going to be better for creators. It’s going to be better for consumers. It’s going to-
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Everybody wins, right?
Nick Hanauer:
Everybody wins. But there is effectively an overwhelming amount of evidence that that is not likely to be true.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, first, let’s put aside this case specifically. In general, when you merge leading players in any given industry, what almost undoubtedly happens every single time is that they reduce competition, prices go up, and the people in the respective states bear the brunt of those mergers.
In this particular industry, we don’t have to look too far back to see other mergers that happened that had a negative impact on consumers. When Warner Brothers and Disney were merging, they made the same sort of promises that we’re hearing now. They went from producing 12 to 15 unique new movie theatrical releases every year down to a third of that about. We also saw the impact on the workforce. And so you see this in history throughout many different industries, way going back to our founding as a country when we went through the industrial revolution and these corporations merge and the competition decrease, this impacts all of us. And in this industry, we’ve seen it in real time.
And so look, I don’t want to downplay the complexity of this case or the challenge that we have as states. This is not an easy lift to bring this type of action, but it is important that we do it because the claims that Paramount and Warren Brothers are making just aren’t borne out by the facts. And our research and our experts that we have retained as states in this case point a very different picture.
Nick Hanauer:
Yeah.
Goldy:
Shortly after this case was filed, Paramount Skydance announced that they would postpone the merger until June. Were you surprised that they acted so quickly to do that? Or was that always the expectation that filing the case would put a pause in the proceedings?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, they didn’t act independently. They acted because we brought this case. And so we felt very confident as a group of states that we had a compelling case to bring, that we had a compelling story to tell across the country and the strength of our coalition and our team that were working on this case. We felt very good about that case. But as Nick was just highlighting, Paramount was posturing about their case and really trying to say that our claims had no basis in law. And I think the opening line of their opposition to our complaint and moving for a temporary restraining order was something like this is the weakest case they’ve ever seen, and the judge rejected that. And so getting that initial TRO, temporary restraining order was very important for us because the judge found quite clearly that we had made a strong showing that this violated monopoly laws.
And so winning that TRO was important. And once we won that initial TRO, I was, I guess on the outside, because I’m not one of the line lawyers, I was surprised how quickly that we were able to reach a resolution, but it was because of the strength of our case. And we’ve got a long fight ahead of us, but our current status is they have agreed to postpone the merger until June or if the judge rules more quickly on the case. And so in all likelihood, we will have some initial resolution before that June timeframe, but it definitely slows us down and forces the company through a lot more rigorous process of review.
Nick Hanauer:
And so where will the Paramount case be heard?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
It’ll be in federal district court. So we filed in the Northern District of California with a federal judge there. Again, with California being the lead state on this, and Washington playing a significant role, we want it to be on the West Coast and filing in California is the appropriate venue for that. So that will be where the merits of the case decision are made. And then depending on who prevails and who loses, we’ll see what happens after that.
Nick Hanauer:
And so this action comes as a consequence of effectively the collapse of the federal government’s willingness to enforce antitrust.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is one of the many, many sad consequences of this current administration. And I think oftentimes we focus on other things that are also pressing, the immigration enforcement issues, some blatant corruption that I think is coming out of this administration. We don’t often talk about is all these other areas where states have really partnered with the federal government to lead on protecting people in our states. We’re talking about consumer protection issues, certainly environmental protection, one that is near and dear to me, civil rights protection, and antitrust is part of that list. And these are areas where the federal government has taken the laboring oar for decades now across multiple administrations because of the expertise and resources that the federal government can bring to bear on a case.
And traditionally, Attorney General’s offices have not had those internal resources to certainly lead a case like this independently. We’ve seen that change. But in this particular area, the DOJ Civil Rights Division has been depleted, but so has the Antitrust Division. And they had a rigorous champion for antitrust leading that work in the beginning of the Trump administration second term. And by all accounts, she was largely forced out from her leadership position and from the department altogether because she did not agree with the very, very business-friendly, merger-friendly policies of this administration. And so once we saw that signal early on in this Trump term that this expert who was not a Democrat by any means, but an expert in antitrust enforcement was being forced out because of her advocacy, it became very clear that the Department of Justice was not going to be a trusted partner when it came to antitrust enforcement. And so into that void, states have really stepped up.
And the best example of that early on this year was on the Live Nation Ticketmaster case. This is a company that has a true monopoly over a live musical and other productions, both on the concerts and also the venues that operate these concerts. And we had worked in partnership with the Department of Justice for many months as they were leading this multi-state bipartisan case, but they kept us in the dark in terms of how they were negotiating. And they cut a very favorable deal for Live Nation Ticketmaster. And the states to their credit refused to accept that. And this was a rare example of true bipartisan partnership among state attorney generals. We were in that case along with Tennessee and some other Republican-led states, and we continued to take that case to trial and we won and we prevailed and convinced a court that what the Live Nation Ticketmaster was doing was unlawful and harmful to consumers. And so at the end of the day, we’re going to get a much better result for consumers and lower ticket prices and more options.
So because the federal government is acquiesced, it’s us.
Nick Hanauer:
Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit more about where that is headed, the Live Nation thing?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, we won on the merits. The court found that, in fact, the allegations that we were making about the monopolization of this market was true, and now we’re going to litigate the remedies phase. And so that is both a financial penalty to Live Nation, and we are advocating for a breakup of certain parts of their business. They control most of the large concert venues in Washington state, including The Gorge, including other areas. And so what we are pushing for is a divestiture of some of those entities as well as part of the remedy. Because importantly, small business venues really, really get harmed by mass corporations over this industry. But we’re going to fight about these remedies in the coming months.
Nick Hanauer:
So for those of us who don’t understand how this unfolds legally, you won on the merits of the case, and then you litigate the remedy. How does that work?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, sometimes they happen at the same time, but it’s very similar to a criminal case. You determine whether the person is guilty or innocent, and then the judge determines what’s the right punishment. In civil cases, sometimes they happen at the same time, but for a very big complex case like this, the judge first has to determine, did this company break the law as we alleged? And then if they broke the law, then you sort of present what the right remedies and penalties should be. And that’s monetary penalties and other prohibitions on their business operations and that kind of thing.
Goldy:
That’s the Live Nation case. In terms of this suit, I assume the goal is to just block the merger or is there some other-
Nick Hanauer:
That’s where I was headed to, yeah.
Goldy:
… in between state that you might come to terms with?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Our principal goal is to block the merger. We think the merger as proposed is harmful to consumers at the end of the day and violates the anti-competition laws in the United States. In theory, the parties could negotiate something different than the merger that’s on the table. And Paramount could say as an alternative, that certain aspects of the business that they were proposing to merge aren’t going to be merged in the same way, but there’s a lot of different iterations of that. But our argument is the merger that they have proposed that they are trying to sell as pro-competitive is not in fact pro-competitive and it’s harmful and violates the law.
Goldy:
So obviously the Justice Department has enormous resources much more than any state AG’s office. But until a functional democracy is reimposed in the other Washington, it looks like it’s up to the AGs in terms of enforcing antitrust? I mean, with the exception of, let’s say if Trump really doesn’t like a CEO at a corporation, then they might try to block a merger. But that aside, since they all seem willing to pay him off, I’m curious when you work with other AGs in other states, you’re obviously spreading the work and spreading the cost together with other states. Do you have the sort of resources to combat these giant corporations in a same way or at least similar to the Justice Department?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, a few things. I think first, the Live Nation Ticketmaster is a great example of how the states have power in this field. When the DOJ cut and run, we did not. We stood strong and advocated on behalf of our residents of our states. Washington could not have done that independently in a case of that size and complexity. And Paramount is the same way. This is going to be a complex fight with a lot of experts, economists, and market analysts and that kind of thing. And it would not be a good use of our time or resources to try to do this case independently. But with a coalition of a dozen states, we can bear that burden and we think it’s worth the cost.
And in this particular case, we’re talking about some of the larger, more sophisticated AG’s offices. California is the biggest law firm on the West Coast. Washington is second to California in terms of its size and capacity. But having them in a leadership position very much helps. But we also have New York and other states who are part of the team, and so we are going to share both those legal resources and the financial resources that we need to bear on this case.
And increasingly, you’re seeing more states recognize this moment and recognize the leadership position that states should have. Oregon, just to our south, has had traditionally only a couple of lawyers in their antitrust division, but their legislature just allocated funding for 16 new positions, both lawyers and staff and analysts. So they’re going to grow substantially. And Washington already has a pretty sizable antitrust division here that we have grown over the last 15 years. And more states are seeing the bang for the buck.
It’s interesting, it’s one of those rare bipartisan things. Most people don’t like big corporations controlling things. Most people like small businesses, they want more options. And so you’re seeing some bipartisanship on this particular area and people seeing the value of states being engaged.
Goldy:
So for the near future, this is the future of antitrust enforcement in the United States. It’s up to the individual states banding together.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, look, I mean, the Department of Justice still has an antitrust division. They still bring cases. We try to partner in good faith with them where we can, but I would just say there’s a healthy amount of skepticism to put it mildly. And it used to be we could trust them. We could trust that they would lead and had our interests at heart, and-
Nick Hanauer:
And actually cared about the issue.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah. And I mean, the president is very explicit. He likes big corporations, he likes mergers, he’s pals with all these CEOs. This is right in his wheelhouse. He likes this thing. And just despite the harm that it causes for people. So I haven’t given up all hope, Goldy, but I’m skeptical.
Goldy:
He likes the idea of David and Larry Ellison doing to CNN what they’ve already done to CBS News. I know that’s not explicitly part of your case, but I’m sure that’s part of the motivation of this merger.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, yeah, I won’t speak for Paramount’s motivations. For the states, it was what is the impact and harm to our people? And that’s nothing to do with whatever relationship the president has. But certainly I think from Paramount’s perspective, being cozy with the president helped and that helps a lot of companies.
Goldy:
I’m a little concerned that a $110 billion merger financed by $86 billion in debt is not going to turn out well for the employees at Warner Brothers when they decide they need to cut costs in order to meet their debt payments.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, I mean that’s more down in the weeds than most people see. But the fact that they took on this exorbitant amount of debt and are still promising that people aren’t going to be harmed by it, that workers are still going to have their jobs, that’s just not math. The math’s not mathing as kids say these days. That’s just not the way it works. Somebody’s got to pay that price and bear that burden, and that is almost always going to be the line workers, the new employees, the younger people in particular.
And that’s not just in California, that’s across the country. Washington has a small but important industry here and movie theaters require more content to put out. And more and more content is available on streaming, but that’s not what movie theaters do. They rely on new original content and the staff and workers behind that work.
Nick Hanauer:
Interesting. And you may not be able to say, but are there other opportunities for this sort of collaborative work? Is there other stuff that you guys are collectively looking at?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, I think there’s all kinds of possibilities. I mean, I think across many different market sectors, we’re seeing a lot of consolidation. And this work is not new for us. Most importantly, in the last year plus, we prevented the merger of Kroger and Albertsons. Same ideas, same consolidation of a particular industry. In that one in particular, we could point to the real devastating impact on the people working at these grocery chains. And that was specific to here in Washington State, but it prevented a multi-billion dollar merger. And so there’s more of that kind of thing in the future.
Nick Hanauer:
Okay. So I’m embarrassed to admit that I lost track of that merger because I remember when it was in the news.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, we won.
Nick Hanauer:
Oh, that’s incredible.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
And Kroger and Albertsons are now fighting with each other about whose fault it is. So there’s more litigation ahead, but we won on the merits. And that was a really important case for us on a lot of different fronts.
Goldy:
Right. It would’ve been pretty devastating in Seattle where the two largest supermarket chains are Safeway, which is Albertsons, and QFC, which is Kroger, well, QFC and Fred Meyer, which is Kroger, and to have that type of merger would’ve really reduced competition in that industry. So it was great to see the victory there and blocking that.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yep. We’ve got a team that’s looking at things all the time, and a lot of our work is driven by what people are seeing in their community. They’re worried about all kinds of mergers. And we do the same sort of review in a different context, but hospital consolidation is something that we’re concerned about because of the impact on healthcare deserts and there’s other areas like that. So we’re not going to back up from this work.
Goldy:
So this raises another question. Obviously blocking these mergers to prevent even more consolidation is a great thing. And it’s wonderful to see the AG’s offices across these states working together to fill that void that’s been left by the Justice Department. What about addressing the concentration that already exists? Is there any role at the state level for trying to force some of these giants to break up?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
It’s much harder in general to break up an existing company rather than stop a proposed merger. It doesn’t mean that antitrust laws are not relevant once a company has combined, but it is harder to attack that. But there are a few companies that we’ve taken a look at where we’ve seen this consolidation, but I have to say it’s a heavier lift in general to do.
At the same time, antitrust is one of the tools that we have. The other for us is our Consumer Protection Act laws that we enforce. And so oftentimes when you see these big corporations merge, you also see an increased level of consumer protection violations because there’s less scrutiny from their competition and they get to control larger portions of the market. And so we have dozens of cases going on right now in the consumer protection space against some of these corporations that have been subject to mergers.
Goldy:
I’m curious about you personally. Obviously the AG is essentially the state’s attorney. Right? You represent the state, you represent all the officers. That’s I think traditionally, primarily what an AG was understood to be. Did you go into this when you ran for office conscious of the fact that you would be stepping into the world of antitrust enforcement in the large way you’re doing now?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Well, yes and no. I mean, I wear two hats. The office has two principal roles. We are the lawyer for state government. We represent every state agency, board and commission, big and small. That makes us large in and of itself because not every state is structured that way. We have 840 lawyers roughly who work here. New York has about 900 because their laws don’t give them principal authority over all state agencies. But that’s one big bucket of our work and it’s the biggest, our client work. But I have a separate constitutional authority to be the advocate for the people of the State of Washington by law under consumer protection, antitrust, civil rights, environmental protection. And I get to sign my name on these cases on behalf of eight million plus Washingtonians.
And so I knew that coming in. In some of these areas, I certainly hoped that we would be doing it in partnership with the federal government and letting them lead on many of these areas. And again, for me, the erasure of their civil rights division breaks my heart. I mean, I grew up professionally in the Department of Justice. I was a line prosecutor and the U.S. attorney. I have a lot of respect for the legacy that they’ve created, but they have reverted from those core responsibilities down to the bare bones. I did not anticipate necessarily that we would be leading the charge and the absence of the federal government against some of these things. But on many different issues, I could not certainly imagine being in any other position because our leadership individually and collectively is so important.
And so taking on Paramount was not something I would’ve predicted when I was running. Another case that we just won and important in an early verdict is we run a preliminary injunction motion against Kalshi, one of the two large prediction markets in the United States because they’re violating Washington state laws.
Nick Hanauer:
Right. Tell us more about that.
Goldy:
Online betting.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah. I mean, look-
Nick Hanauer:
Yeah, I’ll tell you a story. I am indirectly an investor in Kalshi.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Sorry for your loss.
Nick Hanauer:
No, no, no, no, no. I got to tell you this story. So I’m not sure if I’ve told on the pod before, but very good friend of mine who’s the founder of the venture firm that made the investment asked me to meet with these guys to help them talk through regulatory challenges when the company was first founded. I had no idea what it was. I’ve never heard of it. Then I’m like, “Yeah, sure. I’m happy to talk to these guys.”
So we get on this Zoom call and they outline their business model to me. And I was like, “You’re going to do what?” And they’re like, “No, it’s going to be great. You’re going to be able to bet on everything.” And I’m like, “How is that good for the world?” And they’re like, “Well, business people can bet on whether their prices are going to go up.” I’m like, “What proportion of the human population has the kind of advanced statistical training to be able to appropriately make a wager like that?” It’s 0.1%. Everybody else is just getting conned.
Goldy:
That’s the business model.
Nick Hanauer:
Exactly.
Goldy:
What don’t you get about gambling? It’s like casinos, 95% of the profits.
Nick Hanauer:
You should not do this. This is a terrible idea.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yeah, so let me just say a few things. For better or worse, whether you like it or not, Washington has a very regulated gaming marketplace. In particular for sports gambling, it’s very regulated and limited. And every state’s a little bit different, but Washingtonians have decided that we are going to limit the expanse of gaming to a very narrow sector of our community. So that’s first and foremost. My job is to enforce Washington law.
Kalshi is breaking the Consumer Protection Act of Washington State and our state gambling laws by offering these bets. And look, I love sports. I like to gamble. I used to go to Vegas and bet on things. But that’s not just what they’re doing, and they can literally bet on everything. And so one, they’re breaking Washington State law in a way that I think is harmful. But two, I think, Nick, to your original point, there’s something very corrosive about what they’re doing.
Nick Hanauer:
It’s a corruption machine. Right.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Oh, yeah. Well, it’s a corruption machine because there’s the insider knowledge. I mean, Trump’s teleprompter operator just got in trouble because he was betting on the length of the president’s speeches and content. The person doing it was betting on it. But also earlier this year, they had a market where people could bet on the number of measles cases that were going to happen in Washington State and the number of hospitalizations. They currently have a market right now where you can go and bet on the extent of wildfire damage in various locations. There’s something gross about that.
Goldy:
That seems like an incentive to set wildfires.
Nick Hanauer:
Correct.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
It seems like a bad idea. And look, I’m not the morality please for Washington State. I enforce Washington state law, and that’s what we’re doing in this case. But me in my personal capacity, there is something really unnerving and I think troubling about our community, our country, if this is flourishing.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s right. Deeply immoral and corrupt. It’s terrible. It’s just more monetizing humanity’s deepest vulnerabilities, right?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yep. I really think so.
Nick Hanauer:
Listen, Nick, congratulations on all this work. It’s really exciting.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Thank you.
Nick Hanauer:
Thank you on behalf of all of us for digging in and trying to prevent some of this bad stuff. And it’s really super interesting and frankly, a little bit of sort of surprising for those of us who are not deeply involved in.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
We really have some tremendous public servants who work here and almost 2,000 employees in this office, lawyers and staff, and they’re doing work every day on behalf of the public and they don’t get the credit they deserve. So I stand with them on the work that they’re doing and it’s fun. This job is so much damn fun, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else.
Nick Hanauer:
Will it be possible to reconstitute a proper Department of Justice?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
Yes, it will be. It is not going to be easy. I think it’s going to take a few different iterations of leadership and administrations.
Nick Hanauer:
It’ll be years, won’t it?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
It will be years. What I’d like to see happen, and I think that the thing that Trump and the Trump era has most sort of revealed to me in terms of government is that for many, many years, maybe since our founding, we assumed that the goodwill of mankind would help keep in place some safeguards and protections. And that could be articulated through policies or practices or customs in various agencies. And what Trump has shown is that someone without a moral core or anything beyond his own narcissism makes that all a fallacy.
And so what I think that we need to do at a bare minimum is to put into law some of the protections that we just assumed would never happen. I would start with, you can’t be the Attorney General of the United States of America if you’ve been the president’s personal lawyer in the last 10 years or something like that. Just put it into law that you can’t do that. There are things like that.
And even for people who I used to work with who are looking at DOJ with a lot of anger and sadness, there’s still some reluctance, I think, to put into statute some of these norms and customs. But I think we need to. I think we need to institutionalize in a way that makes it harder to reverse. I mean, laws can be changed, but if you put into statute these sort of basic things and there’s a whole laundry list of them, I think we’ll be in a much better place.
Nick Hanauer:
Yeah. Okay. One final question. Why do you do this work?
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
It’s I think what I am best suited to do. Both my parents were public servants. They always really did push me to care about what’s happening in the community. I mean, I was that kid running for student government when I was young, and it’s always this called to me. And it’s fun to come to work every day and to do things that really matter and are having an impact and that never gets boring. And right now this role is sort of a manifestation of my prior experiences and I think just what I was pushed to do since I was a kid.
Nick Hanauer:
That’s great. That’s great. Well, thanks for what you do, and thanks for being with us.
WA Attorney General Nick Brown:
I appreciate you both. Thank you for having me on.
Goldy:
So Nick, since Trump won reelection, I have been writing on social media and talking about something I call soft succession. Other people use that term as well, which really describes a devolution of powers that we typically have left to the federal government to have and to enforce and leaving them to the states to do. And I think this is a really good example of states stepping up, filling the void and using their collective resources to help enforce, in this case, antitrust law, not just in the Paramount Skydance Warner Brothers merger, but as Nick talked about also in the Live Nation case. And I think it’s a really important development, not just politically of course, but also economically because when you look at things like antitrust, it can have such a huge impact, not just on employees and consumers, but on the economy as a whole.
Nick Hanauer:
Right, right. No, it’s very exciting and hopeful that the states can intervene and win in these cases, absent support from the federal government. Although it is just a profound shame that we need to use our resources in this way. There are so many other things.
Goldy:
You do. These are the circumstances we’re in. And to be clear, when we talk about something like the entertainment industry, if people just diss it as, oh, who cares how many movies are being made or who’s making them or who’s distributing the TV shows, you are missing one of the greatest economic forces of the U.S. economy over the past hundred years. The U.S., just financially, as an exporter of entertainment content, of TV and movies and music is just enormous and overpowering. But also it turned us into a cultural power. The U.S. culture has been dominant worldwide since World War II because of this industry.
And it’s amazing, it happened in California. That was the first time California kind of revolutionized the economy by creating this global power, this global cultural and economic power. They did it a second time in Silicon Valley with the tech revolution. Again, just enormously important to our economy and our ability to export not just our goods and services, but again, our soft power and our culture.
And it’s kind of maybe happening again in a very scary way with AI, which is a new industry that connected to tech and connected to Silicon Valley, but has huge, not just financial, but again, cultural implications, both for the U.S. and for the entire world. And if we’re going to let clearly the federal government, again, you look at AI, they want nothing to do with regulating it and preventing harm to consumers or businesses or the environment in the case of the data centers. It’s up to the states.
And so we’ve argued as a big part of our economic theory of the new economics of market humanism, that there is a legitimate and necessary role of a functional government to regulate the economy in a market economy to constrain the worst impulses of market capitalism in order to ensure competition and in order to assure an equitable distribution of economic gains. And if the federal government is not going to do that and the states can’t step in, then that’s going to result in not just less competition, but slower growth and more inequality.
So it seems odd to talk to a state attorney general on an economics podcast, but if you think about how market economies really work, in this moment, in this historical moment, it’s absolutely necessary for AGs like Nick Brown to be there and taking a very proactive role.
Nick Hanauer:
Yeah. In helping shape markets in ways that will benefit people broadly rather than just Larry Ellison.
Goldy:
That’s right. That’s the role of government is to provide a countervailing power against super rich sociopaths like the Ellisons.
If you want to hear more from Nick Brown and his thoughts on this, we will provide a link in the show notes to his op-ed in the Washington Post.
Nick Hanauer:
Hey gang, if you like Pitchfork Economics, I recently joined a four-part IDEAS documentary series called ‘The Billionaire Age’ about how extreme wealth is shaping our economy and democracy. Free episodes are out now and we’ll include a link in the show notes. Please take a listen.
Freddy:
Pitchfork Economics is produced by Civic Ventures. If you like the show, make sure to follow, rate, and review us wherever you get your podcasts. Find us on other platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Threads @PitchforkEconomics. Nick’s on Twitter and Facebook as well @NickHanauer. For more content from us, you can subscribe to our weekly newsletter, The Pitch, over on Substack. And for links to everything we just mentioned, plus transcripts and more, visit our website, pitchforkeconomics.com.
As always, from our team at Civic Ventures, thanks for listening. See you next week.