The Underreported Scandal at the DOJ

0:00Subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts for early access, ad-free listening and bonus content to all of MSNow's original podcasts, including the Char Topping series The Best People with Nicole Wallace. Why is this happening? Main Justice and more! Plus new episodes of all your favorite MSNow shows ad-free and ad-free listening to all of Rachel Maddo's original series, including Rachel Maddo Presents Burn Order. Subscribe to MSNow Premium on Apple Podcasts. Good morning. It's Sunday, April the 29th. I'm Ali Velshi. We are taking stock this morning of the impact of thousands of No Kings protests and the next fight for the new resistance. Donald Trump's single-minded obsession with a dangerous new voter suppression plan. Plus, Trump is positioning ground troops in the Middle East with three and a half thousand arriving in the region, just as Israel is expanding its ground invasion into Lebanon, a story that hasn't got as much

1:00coverage, but I want to tell you about in detail. And everything you want to know about a bombshell legal ruling that could change social media forever. But we begin this hour with an investigation into a Trump administration scandal that has largely flown under the radar, but appears ready to break open into a watergate level crisis for the president. Now, while it's tempting to recall watergate having been triggered by a break-in, it actually had its roots with an anti-trust scandal and a thread that two lawmakers refused to stop pulling on. In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration stood accused of interfering in a justice department case against ITT, international telephone and telegraph. Now, you'll remember it if you're a person of a certain age as I am. ITT was a conglomerate that controlled telecom, hotels, defense contracts, and plenty of other things. The allegation is that the DOJ went easy on ITT's anti-trust case in exchange for ITT

2:01funding part of the 1972 Republican National Convention, corporate money in exchange for government favor in a deal. A Texas Democrat named Wright Patman, then a chair of the House Banking Committee, tried to investigate, but Patman was blocked by members of his own party, Democratic party, who called it too risky a thing to do in an election year. So, Patman passed the info he had to a Democratic senator, Sam Irvin. Irvin's committee, the Senate Watergate committee, ran with it. Then the courts, then the press. Then more congressional probes, peace by peace, the scandal came into focus. The ITT anti-trust case may seem obscure today, but it revealed the administration's willingness to bend rules for political and corporate games, setting the stage for the Watergate break-in, which is the part of the scandal most Americans remember. As investors began digging into these financial and political connections, the Nixon campaign grew increasingly paranoid about leaks, and opposition research. That fear and suspicion led to the infamous break-in at the

3:06Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate Hotel. It triggered the historic investigations that forced a sitting president to resign just two years later, and that history matters today because what the Wall Street Journal has uncovered inside the current Justice Department may be the Trump administration's first anti-trust domino, and it's already putting people inside the administration on high alert. This is a good story, so I want you to pay attention to this. The Journal describes a scandal that, quote, casts a shadow over the Justice Department's integrity and has alarmed even some Trump loyalists in the department, end quote, and at the center of it is this man, Mike Davis. Now pay attention to him. To understand Mike Davis's role, you've got to understand how he got here. After the FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, Mike Davis became one of Donald Trump's most aggressive public defenders, making thousands of media appearances, positioning himself as a top outside legal ally, not officially part of Donald Trump's team.

4:07In Davis's own words, quote, I have a very good relationship with the president, and it became very strong when I was just about the only person who was defending him on TV after the Mar-a-Lago raid, end quote. Trump, as expected, rewarded that loyalty publicly, calling Davis tough as hell on the campaign trail, and someone he wanted in a, quote, very high capacity. After the election, Davis helped recommend key figures to lead antitrust enforcement, including this woman, Gail Slater, whom Trump nominated as Assistant Attorney General to run the Justice Department's antitrust division, a massive job when you're an administration that wants a lot of deals to go through. Donald Trump got a lot of money from massive corporations to ease up on approval for deals. And then, by his own account, Mike Davis turned around and bragged to the same officials that he'd helped install that corporate clients were, quote, beating his door down because of his amazing White House access, that's according to the Wall Street

5:10Journal as well, beating his door down. Let's just let that sit for a second. Mike Davis helped pick the referees, the regulators, then he showed up to play the game. And when those referees refused to play ball the way he wanted them to, according to multiple accounts, they all lost their jobs. But I'm going to get there in a minute. I don't want to get away from, from this story. So stay with me. Davis has cultivated what the Wall Street Journal described as a crass street fighter persona. In one example, he reportedly told former Congressman Gabby Giffords, who you will recall survived an assassination attempt in 2011 to f off after she spoke out about gun violence. The Wall Street Journal notes that he's multiple, he's had multiple suspensions from X, formerly Twitter. This is who Mike Davis is. But that persona isn't bluster, it appears to be operational. The former FTC chair, William Kovacek, appointed by President George W. Bush, put it plainly, lobbyists who once thrived behind the scenes, now loudly tout their connections

6:12and wins. Davis, he said, is the face of this movement. In previous administration's Kovacek noted, you, you would never want to be seen holding the knife. Once you've got the background, let's get the cases now. A $14 billion merger last year. He lit Packard enterprises and Juniper networks. Career antitrust lawyers tried to block this deal, arguing it would reduce competition in a critical tech sector. You can be excused if you don't remember anything about this case, because with all the news last year, it was hard to make it make sense. Instead, Regulators pushed for a pretty standard fix. They required the merged company to sell off key assets so that it is less concentrated and market dominating. That's how antitrust enforcement is supposed to work so that one company doesn't become too controlling. But according to a sworn deposition from the DOJ official Roger Alfred, testimony that was filed as part of a formal tonny act proceeding. I'll tell you about that in a second. Mike Davis, the lawyer I've been telling

7:13you about, called the antitrust chief at the Department of Justice, Gail Slater. Remember the one that he helped get into the job? And he said, this quote, if you don't approve this settlement, I will destroy you. I will destroy your job at the DOJ. Slater was understandably shaken enough to report the call immediately. Davis denies, he said it, but the allegation was made under oath by a senior justice department official in formal leading proceedings. So if someone's lying here, someone's going to get in big trouble. When the justice department's career lawyers tried to block the Hewlett-Packard Juniper merger in order to protect competition, Mike Davis and the company's lawyers didn't negotiate on the merits of the case, as would normally happen. Instead, they went over the heads of agency staff allegedly appealing directly to Trump-appointed leadership and using back channel outreach to senior Department of Justice officials, according to the journal. Even as Slater instructed the company that no more lobbyists should be involved in the process, a directive meant to stop outside influence. Davis was already allegedly meeting privately with

8:16top officials behind the scenes, bypassing the very people responsible for enforcing the law. Again, according to the Wall Street Journal. Then came one of the most extraordinary moments of this whole story. I hope you're still with me. It's a long story, but it's really interesting. A senior Department of Justice official walked into Gail Slater's office and placed a settlement term sheet on her desk, written by Hewlett-Packard's own lawyers, according to the journal. Written not by government regulators, but by the company seeking regulator approval. The document dropped off key asset divestiture requirement, which would have required Hewlett-Packard to sell off certain assets, the very condition that was meant to prevent them from becoming a monopoly. When Slater asked her superior, the associate attorney general Stanley Woodward, what would happen if she refused to sign? He reportedly told her he would fire her deputies, according to the Wall Street Journal. The very next day, the deal was announced.

9:19Weeks later, her deputies were terminated. Months after that, Gail Slater, the person Davis himself helped install and then allegedly threatened, was out of the department. According to the journal, Mike Davis pushed for Gail Slater's removal and then celebrated it, publicly the way he is, in more than a dozen posts on X. In his own deposition, he acknowledged recommending her firing to quote anyone who would listen. Notably, the cases far from over, by the way, 33 state attorneys general refused to join the settlement and are continuing the fight. In court filings, they wrote, quote, the series of events that led to the settlement are unprecedented and should shock the conscience. Threats were made against the head of the anti-trust division and her top deputies. The U.S. completely abdicated its role as a principal defender of anti-trust laws and through the corrupt lobbying process has abandoned any semblance of a reasoned and principled decision-making process. End quote. Now here's the thing. After Watergate, Congress passed something I mentioned earlier called the Toney Act to prevent exactly this kind

10:23of corruption, requiring parties to disclose meetings, contacts and communications, but investigators say key meetings with lobbyists were never disclosed. Back channel contacts were left off of official records. Text messages involving Davis were never produced. That missing paper trail is a central concern for Matt Stolar. The research director at the American Economic Liberties Project and one of the country's sharpest, sharpest outside analysts of anti-trust and monopoly power who's been tracking these cases and flagging the significance of those gaps in the record. Because this isn't just one case. In a separate merger involving real estate giant Compass, anti-trust enforcers called for a deeper investigation. Compass hired Mike Davis to help push the acquisition. According to the journals reporting, the company wanted to avoid second request, which is a routine part of anti-trust enforcement in which an agency asked for more information to decide whether to block or approve a deal as the Wall Street Journal noted Slater

11:24wanted one. Slater was overruled and the deal went through right in the middle of a national housing crisis. And then, like I said, this is not done. Then came the case you might actually have heard of, even if you don't know the backstory. Live nation, entertainment and its ticketing arm, ticket master, one of the biggest anti-trust cases in the country accusing live nation of using its absolute dominance over concerts, venues and ticketing to crush competition and drive up prices. I'm sure a story you're pretty familiar with. The government argued that the company controls roughly half the concert promotion market. The general rules in government is no company should control more than a third of anything. Live nation controls half. Court filings describe internal company conversations about how stupid their customers are and how they were robbing their customers blind. The anti-trust staff at the Department of Justice was actively litigating this case in federal court when suddenly a settlement appeared. Negotiated above their heads, anti-trust regulators were completely shut out of the process,

12:24not once, not twice, but throughout, according to reporting by the Wall Street Journal and by Matt Stolar. And here's where it gets extraordinary. According to the Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the conversations, Donald Trump was personally calling AIDS, asking why the case hadn't been settled. What's the hold up? He asked. The journal reports that Trump heard about the case from Ari Emanuel, the Hollywood super agent and former live nation board member who reportedly urged Donald Trump to get this solved. On March 3, Trump hosted a controversial White House meeting with the live nation CEO, Michael Rapinoe, the attorney general, Pam Bondi, and Gail Slater's acting replacement. Remember, Gail Slater's gone now. That same day, a settlement was signed, and the company avoided a breakup. Critics called the outcome an effective corporate pardon of powerful monopoly. As the journal put it, quote, it was an extraordinary role for a president to play in a routine anti-trust investigation. The federal judges reaction, by the way,

13:27was not nearly a subtle. The DOJ's own lead trial attorney told the court, I only saw the term sheet when you did read that again. The nation's top anti-trust enforcers standing in front of a judge in a federal court telling the judge that they were kept completely in the dark about a settlement in a case that they were actively prosecuting. The judge called it outrageous, quote, it shows absolute disrespect for the court, for the jury, for this entire process, and it is entirely unacceptable, end quote. Guess who live nation had on its retainer? Mike Davis. According to the journal's reporting, Davis earns fees across his client portfolio that can reach $300,000 a month, representing companies with billions on the line. In his own words, I know the people, I know the pressure points, I know how to win, end quote. Watergate didn't begin with a break in. It began with an anti-trust thread and two lawmakers who refused to let it go. Once they pulled, everything else followed. What we know so far comes from

14:30sworn depositions, court filings, and investigative reporting by the Wall Street Journal, or Journal, along with the ongoing analytical work of Matt Stolar, who's been among the most precise outside observers of what's happening inside the current DOJ. The bigger question is what hasn't come out yet? As Stolar puts it, and I want you to hear this, quote, this is linked to the first real investigation of the administration by anyone with any power, which is the democratic state attorneys general themselves. These people are co-plaintiffs in a bunch of different cases with the Trump justice department, and the live nation settlement isn't the first time they witness such bad acts, end quote. I'm joined by Matt Stolar, director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project. It's a nonprofit that advocates for corporate accountability and enforcement of anti-trust regulation. Stolar is the co-host of the organized money podcast. Matt, thanks for being with us. Hey, thanks for having me. Matt, I don't know how many people who are out at the No Kings protests were protesting some version of corruption in the government, but this is part of that. This is

15:33part of that corruption. Somehow, people get money from corporations and corporations getting an easy go of it when they're trying to do things that are counter to the interests of the American people. Yeah, we have a corruption crisis, and the oligarchy that people dislike, the hatred of what powerful individuals are doing, the concentration of power in the hands of a few, is a direct result of this corruption. I mean, the specifics of each case, whether it's Hula Packard or Compass Anywhere, they're pretty boring, but the point is it's about people extracting in individual markets. Markets, whether it's Wi-Fi systems, which is what Hula Packard was selling, or real estate brokerage systems, which is Compass Anywhere, or ticketing, this is the guts of the economy. When you consolidate power in one of those markets, you are generating inequality, you are generating more oligarchy. If you do it across enough markets, that's what you have.

16:34We see that there is a direct link between corruption, corporate power, oligarchy, and the increasing authoritarianism that we're seeing in politics. Yeah, because there's a lot of regulatory things that go on that people wouldn't agree with, right? People think, thought for many years, that regulators give companies a pass. But, you know, there's a general understanding in society that when it comes to things to do with consumers, one company shouldn't control sort of more than a third of stuff. There are people in my audience who buy tickets to concerts or buy them for their families, who realize, wait, why does this cost the way it does? Because somebody's not on the ball. These little ways in which you steal money from people add up. Yeah, I mean, this is not the, it's not the first time we've seen corruption. I mean, there was huge amounts. This is a, this problem has been going on for 40 years. It's just that it's so much more extreme and it's so much more obvious at this point. And the way that Trump is doing it and people like Mike Davis and Stanley Woodward and, and Pam Bondi, I mean, it's, and, and, and corporations. I mean, that, that the general counsel of Hewlett Packard, John Schultz was heavily involved in quarterbacking

17:37this situation. So it's just a, a more extreme version of overt collusion between corporate elites and political elites. In this case, the Republican party and the Trump administration. And it, honestly, it's not, we've got to have a word for something that is both shocking and obvious, because that's what I, when I'm looking at these cases. And I think every, yeah, shocking, I was probably some German word. Everybody knows this is happening. I'm just looking at the details. But I just want people to know the details do back up your instinct that something is really, really bad. That, that's right. Because it's a lot, it's a very complicated story to tell. And I, I think my viewers for sticking through us, sticking with us through it. But you kind of need to know, you don't need to know what the details mean. You need to know that there are actual details here. You draw this parallel between Watergate and what's happening now. I have difficulty with that only because people had some scruples in Watergate in both political parties. So when threads were pulled, it did result in something happening, including a senior cabinet

18:37official going to jail. Do you believe that there's any such consequence here to, to knowing these facts? I do. I think that, you know, I think there are, I think the American people are fundamentally immoral people. And there are enough judges. There's enough state. There's, you know, there's enough opposition to this. And there's enough anger from the public that we can and we are stopping this. I mean, you know, it's adjacent to it. But you saw this week. I know you're going to talk about this. The, the meta and, and Google trials, jury trials, you saw a musk in a jury trial. How the cannibal for defrauding investors, jury trials are kind of what normal people think. And they are a check in our system. The state attorneys general, most of whom are elected leaders like Rob Bonta, California, Phil Weiser, Colorado. These are the guys that are forcing the Trump administration officials and these corporate officials to sit through depositions. And I think that, I mean, that really matters. And we're going to see a huge wave in the midterms.

19:37And if they investigate, you know, they're going to find exactly what they found with Nixon. But I'm, you know, we're kind of speedrunning Watergate and a much dumber way. So it's just going to be going to be much more obvious. And the thing is, is now there are dozens of depositions just sitting there waiting for any member of Congress to pick up and read and say, Hey, let's, let's look into this. Let's look into that. Let's look in insider trading. Let's look at the son of potential bribery, et cetera, et cetera. It's important because there are a lot of people who are going to be campaigning over the next few months on affordability. And fundamentally, these protections are about affordability in the, in the cost you pay for things. Matt, thanks for staying on top of these things with us. We appreciate it. Matt Stuller is the director of research at the American Economic Liberties Project and the co-host of the organized money podcast. All right, coming up, two of Iran's most powerful regional allies have joined the fighting in the Middle East and the consequences have been particularly devastating for Lebanon. More than a thousand people have died and the destruction in vast portions of the country is being compared to Gaza. Home to the Rachel Maddo Show. Morning Joe, the briefing with Jen Socky and more voices you know

20:43and trust. MS now is your source for news, opinion, and the world. Learn more at MS.Now. The Iranian-backed Houthis in, uh, Houthi rebels in Yemen have joined the war in the Middle East, conducting a series of strikes on Israel this weekend. The Houthis are one of the most powerful and important members of Iran's access of resistance. But this marks the first time since the US and Israel began their airstrikes on Iran just over a month ago that the Houthis have entered the fighting. The situation's been vastly different with another powerful Iranian-backed group, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Full skill fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has been non-stop since the start of the war with Iran and Israel has now launched an expanding ground invasion of Southern Lebanon. Vast portions of Lebanon and South are starting to look like the destruction seen previously in Gaza, something top Israeli government ministers have actually publicly called for.

21:43Israeli strikes in and around the Lebanese capital of Beirut are also leaving massive destruction. At least 1,189 people have died in Lebanon, according to the health ministry, including at least 122 children. Yesterday, three Lebanese journalists were killed in an airstrike, one of whom had been on air with a live report moments prior. The Israeli military claims that one of the journalists was a quote terrorist with Hezbollah, but like they used to do in Gaza, they have provided no evidence to say that that's true. 51 health workers in Lebanon have been killed so far this month, the second deadliest month for health workers in Lebanon since October of 2023. More than one million people in Lebanon have fled their homes according to official figures. That includes a significant portion of the population in the South and almost the entire population south of the Latani river. Israel's defense minister announced on Tuesday that the Israeli military is now occupying Lebanon south of the Latani river in order to create what he calls a quote security

22:43zone and defensive buffer inside Lebanon. Israel has destroyed at least five bridges over the Latani river. It's raised neighborhoods and homes and established a reinforced several military bases. The situation doesn't appear to be coming down at all. Israel's defense minister threatened to quote escalate and expand military operations inside Lebanon. I'm joined now by Fawaz-Jerjus, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. He specializes in international relations in the Middle East. He's the author of many books, including The Great Betrayal, The Struggle for Freedom and Democracy in the Middle East. For us, my old friend, Fawaz, Fawaz, good to see you again. It's been a long time. It's sort of having me out. It's really my pleasure. Let's talk about what's going on in Lebanon. It's flying onto the radar because we're mostly preoccupied with the Israeli and American strikes on Iran and these strikes coming out of Iran. Lebanon is in the middle of this whole mass. Lebanon is in not great stakes below a great condition politically to start with. What's the situation? The Struggle. You have a catastrophic

23:48humanitarian situation. The figures you just listed, Ali, more than one million man displaced by Israel's blanket evacuation orders, which according to human rights and the United Nations, could be considered a world cry. The Lebanese population is six million people. More than 1,200 people have been killed and almost 3,000 injured, including at least 120 children. The population of Iran is 92 millions and the figures actually, you have similar figures killed in Lebanon to Iran's numbers as well. So it tells you about the catastrophe that has been formed in Lebanon in the past four weeks, including, as you said, more than 40 medical workers, journalists. Really, you can summarize Israel's strategy in Lebanon in two words, collective punishment.

24:48What Israel is trying to do is to punish the entire population to exert pressure and adjust on Khazbullah, but to exert pressure on the Lebanese government and basically bring about state collapse in Lebanon. Which, by the way, wouldn't be too hard to achieve right now. Let's just describe for people who are unfamiliar with it. Lebanon has a government that is not Hasbullah. Hasbullah is a big part of the government, but the government operates very separately. Israel's fight seems to be with Hasbullah at this point, but a lot of southern Lebanon, and people who live there, whether under Hasbullah's control or otherwise, are being affected and in many cases killed as a result of this. Oh, absolutely. I think when we need to understand is that since really the 1990s, Hasbullah has emerged as a parallel government to the Lebanese government. It's not just a paramilitary organization. Hasbullah is also a social and political movement and it's deeply embedded within the Shiaq community, Shiaq Muslim as opposed to Sunni Muslims,

25:53but it has a broader support among Sunni Lebanese and Christian Lebanese as well. And in participated, it basically during the Israel Hamas war, Hasbullah basically tried to show solidarity with Hamas and basically it fired some missiles on Israel and then the war lasted for 13 months between Israel and Hasbullah. And there was a ceasefire in 2024 just to give your viewers a glimpse of what happened in the past 15 months after the ceasefire had been signed. Israel attacked Lebanon on an almost daily basis. Israel killed more than 500 Lebanese during the after its time the ceasefire and injured more than a thousand. It violated Lebanese sovereignty on a daily basis and in fact according to Israeli officials, they were really waiting for the moment to basically launch another

26:57invasion of Lebanon and try to destroy the remnants of Hasbullah because Hasbullah's capabilities were degraded in the 13 months war between Israel and Hasbullah but Hasbullah remains a major potent force. So the Lebanese government feels that it's really pressed between Hasbullah which basically has taken action into its own hands and basically Israel's collective punishment to the Lebanese and the Lebanese president, Josef Haun basically initiated a diplomatic idea about talking directly with Israel the first time ever, president basically put on the table a diplomatic initiative by his willingness to talk to Israel. Of course, Israel wants the Lebanese government to talk under fire. It wants to occupy southern Lebanon and force the Lebanese government to surrender and basically come from Hasbullah. The Lebanese government does not have the capabilities, the military capabilities to take on Hasbullah and taking on Hasbullah could trigger

28:00civil stride because Hasbullah is not a paramilitary organization. Hasbullah is deeply embedded within the social, political and religious environment of Lebanon. So Israel now seems to have a green light because everyone is focusing on Iran and President Trump has given Israel a green light to do whatever it wants in Lebanon. Yes, generally we would expect the American president to say this is a sovereign country. You can't actually just incidentally decide to occupy it, but that is not happening right now. Fawaz, thank you very much. Fawaz Yershis is a professor of international relations at the London School of Economics. He's the author of many books including The Great Betrayal. All right, coming up the two court cases that could change social media as we know it, meta and YouTube have been found to be harmful to its users. What that means for online safety and keeping it big tech in check. For well over a decade, big tech social media giants have been

29:02telling the public and lawmakers and regulators and judges and anyone who will listen that their platforms are in fact safe for kids, even as accusations kept piling up that they were knowingly building products that actually cause mental harm. This week the company's attempts to sidestep accountability hit a major roadblock when a California jury returned a landmark verdict against YouTube and meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. A jury found the company's liable for deliberately designing their platforms, deliberately designing their platforms to be addictive to young users despite knowing about the possible harm that they were causing. The case was brought by a now 20 year old woman who accused the companies of creating products with design features as addictive as cigarettes causing her mental distress. YouTube and meta were ordered to pay six million dollars in damages. Now you're going to say six million dollars in damages for these companies. That's not even vending machine change. I don't mean it's, I think they make more money in their vending machines. It's like the money in the sofa to drop in the bucket

30:04for companies that bring in billions of dollars in revenue every quarter. But as the New York Times notes, the ruling marks, quote, a major step to rein in social media giants that could open social media companies to more lawsuits over users well being. And quote, the verdict is one of thousands, thousands of lawsuits filed by school districts and teenagers and state attorneys general against meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat validating a new legal theory that posits social media sites can cause personal harm by design. Can't remember the cigarette thing. The plaintiffs argument draws inspiration from the playbook that was used against the big tobacco companies in the late 1990s, which compelled cigarette makers to completely overhaul their business at huge cost. Both companies say they disagree with the verdict and plan to appeal it. But the losses may be mounting. Just a day before California's ruling, a New Mexico jury found meta violated state law by failing to safeguard young users from its apps, young users of its apps from child predators.

31:07The penalty in that one was bigger, $375 million in damages. Prosecutors argued that meta prioritized user engagement and profit over child safety, despite knowing internally about child sexual exploitation on its platforms. Social media companies have long argued that they are protected by both the First Amendment and a federal law known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, legal shields that have for years kept them out of reach of most lawsuits. That's because the companies have been able to argue that they are not responsible for content that users post out online. They're basically, they're basically, there's a pipeline for information. What goes through the pipe is not their concern. Now, these two cases want to bypass those assertions, signaling that they're shield from accountability may be starting to crack. Courts are no longer just looking at what users post of their own volition, but how the platforms are built and whether their architecture actually causes harm, creating a new landscape that these companies might find

32:11difficult to argue against. We're going to discuss this after the break with Mary Ann Franks, president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative and Tom Hartman, host of the Tom Hartman program. Okay, joining me now, Tom Hartman, host of the syndicated radio talk show, The Tom Hartman program, and author of numerous books, including The Last American President of Broken Man, a corrupt party and a world on the brink. I'm also here with Mary Ann Franks, president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating online abuse and discrimination. She's the author of multiple books, including Fearless Speech, Breaking Free, from the First Amendment. Welcome to both of you. Mary Ann, I would love your help in, you know, I was trying to sort of

33:12make that story clear to the viewer, but it's, you know, it's a little, there's got some complexities in it. And fundamentally, nobody thinks a few hundred million dollars is going to change the social media industry, but is there a greater significance to these courtes, these rulings? I think there definitely is. As you say, it's not about the fines. It's of course the, you know, by the time you become one of these billion dollar corporations, the fines are not really the issue. It's the finding of liability. And even beyond that, it's the fact that these trials have gone ahead altogether. The most important thing about these trials and about these verdicts is the information that the public is able to see that they just were not able to see before. The early rulings on these cases that let them go forward were unusual. And I meant that we got to ask questions and we got to see the executives of these companies have to answer questions about what they knew and when they knew it and what they did about it. And that is really what's going to be so influential going forward because it's not just about these verdicts. It's about

34:13the public perception of these companies and it's about potential regulation by the government that's inevitably also going to change following some of these verdicts. Well, what hopes, Tom, because I was talking to Max Stoller earlier about the live nation story and the Hewlett-Packett Juniper story. And it was a story of the absolute collapse of our regulatory state, the fact that the oligarchy now has figured out entire ways to work around these things. So this is the story, the tech story that gives me a little bit of hope, right? That says that there is some accountability. It may have to be from courts and juries, but there is some accountability. There's documentary evidence. It reminds me of the cigarette cases. And there's something that has to follow from this. To Marianne's point, it's not the money. Something will have to follow, whether it's behavioral changes that are mandated by the government or legislation. Yeah, in my book, the history of Big Brother, I kind of laid this out and entered a recent article as well, using the metaphor of a house. If your neighbor ran, put a big

35:13sign out in front of his house that said, Friday night, big party, everything's allowed. And then Friday night comes and you've got people selling pornography, illegal pornography, it's selling guns and shooting up drugs and just all kinds of criminal activity going on. You wouldn't just bust the criminals or the police wouldn't come and just bust the criminals. They'd also bust the guy on the house. Well, in this case, the social media outlets are essentially the house. So there's two issues here. One is, is this house inviting people in in a way that's going to suck them in to awful things and encourage, in fact, those awful things. Number one, and number two, what is the awful things? What is the content? And how do we deal with that content? And those both need a national conversation, frankly, I think this lawsuit is good start. Mary Ann, Tom's using the expression house, but the companies have sort of used various expressions, including pipes, right? They're saying they're just a conduit. What people put into,

36:17if a terrorist uses electricity, you can't blame the electricity company. This is also about section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which you've talked a lot about. Is there a break here? Is there something here that says that tech companies are going to have to take greater responsibility about what goes through their pipes or what parties happen at their houses? I think what's going on here is a clarification. What these companies have tried to say is that everything that happens on their platforms, including, you know, as these corporations become not just social media platforms, but they attempt to become sort of everything apps, right? So they're trying to always just, you know, us connecting people to other people's content. We can't be held responsible for what those people use or do or, you know, do that information. But the thing about these trials and the thing about these new cases that are getting traction are saying it's not just about what you've connected people to. It's what you yourself as the company, as the house, if we want to call it that, what are you doing yourselves? You know, are

37:18you having an unsafe facility where people are falling through the floor or where people are not able to leave when they want to go? If the exits are all blocked, right? So the focus is on saying, well, you can try to say that the content that you provide to people is not your false, not your responsibility. But these cases are saying, well, what about the things that you yourselves as a company are offering? Things like beauty filters that are causing serious body dysmorphia among young girls? And also, what are the ways that you are trying to trap people or really sort of entice people to keep using things that we know are harmful to them? And Tom, this is where it gets, again, it goes back to the cigarette stuff, right? There is evidence that was introduced into these cases that demonstrated exactly what Mary Ann said, that the companies knew that their architecture was contributing to these harms. This is not a conversation on the merits of whether we are just a house or a pipe and its content going through. It's the argument that many insiders have told us for years, this is not a bug. It's a feature.

38:18Yeah, absolutely. Back prior to section 230, which happened in 1996 with the Telecommunications Act, I ran forums, Nigel Peacock and I by business partner, ran forums and copies are from, I think, 79 right up until 96. And we had about 25, 30 people. We ran over 20 different forums. And the IBM PC, Macintosh, UFOs, ADHD, all kinds of stuff, political. And our employees, because we share the revenue from Compuserve, they paid us a fair amount of money to do this. Just made sure that basically the house was in order and the content was clean. And the thing worked well. When section 230 came, they just stopped paying us. And most of the moderators went away. And most of the moderation went away. And we got the modern internet. Frankly, if we were to, and this is hyper simplistic, we really need to have a conversation about this. But frankly, if we went back to something like that, Mark Zuckerberg might go from

39:23being worth hundreds of billions to only tens of billions dollars. Meta might be slightly less profitable, but I think we'd have a much safer environment, a much more reasonable one. After all, this is what the network Iran does. This is what newspapers do. You make sure that your content is not destructive. We'd be concerned about our reputation if our contact is destructive. Poor Mary Ann is sitting here saying, what does run a forum on Compuserve mean? But I appreciate the discussion. Never go with you. Thank you. This is important. And you're right. We should be having this discussion. This should be a national discussion that we should all be involved in about what regulation of social media. And I think Mary Ann, your point is really valid that it's not, these are not content delivery mechanisms anymore. They're everything apps. So thanks to both of you, Tom Hartman is the host of the syndicated radio talk show, the Tom Hartman program. And Mary Ann Franks is president of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative. We'll be right back. So there are backstops and there are enablers when it comes to Trump's MAGA agenda.

40:26Democratic states have taken precautions to block power grabs from the White House. But some Republican-led states are doing the exact opposite. I'm going to tell you how some states have become laboratories for legislation that Trump can't actually get passed nationally. And we saw an incredible show of collective resistance during the No Kings rallies yesterday. I'll tell you where the movement goes from here and where Donald Trump is drawing the next battle lines another hour of Velshey begins after the break. Listen to your favorite MS now shows anytime as a podcast. Enjoy new episodes of Morning Joe, Deadline White House, and The Rachel Maddo Show. Every small, deep, democratic muscle that we have is flexing. Plus the last word with Laurence O'Donnell, the beat with Ari Melper, The Weeknight, and more. On the go, wherever you get your podcasts, for ad-free listening to all of your favorite shows, subscribe to MS now Premium on Apple Podcasts.