On Lina Khan’s 60 Minutes interview with CBS’s Lesley Stahl, the FTC Chair told the nation about the agency’s many successes during the Biden administration. They discussed successful FTC’s actions to bring down inhaler, insulin and other drug costs, pending lawsuits against Amazon and other Big Tech giants, and Khan’s chilling effect on corporate willingness to pursue anti-competitive mergers. While Stahl espoused corporate America’s ‘fear’ of Khan’s leadership, the FTC Chair proudly stood by the agency’s actions to protect Americans from corporate monopolies.
Unfortunately, in 60 Minutes Overtime, Stahl parroted talking points from unnamed critics that Khan was too young and “not experienced” enough to lead the agency. Stahl repeatedly asserts that Khan was “so young” and questioned whether this caused other FTC Commissioners to “see [her] as an interloper.” As we said when Matt Yglesias made a similar point, Khan’s record proves this argument is bogus. The litany of policy and legal victories by the FTC, many of which Stahl herself discussed in the main interview, show that age and experience concerns are not rooted in fact, but in a desire for the FTC to revert to a previous era where mergers were rubber stamped and corporate malfeasance went unchecked.
Image Credit: “Lina Khan 3, Competition and Regulation in Disrupted Times, Brussels, Belgium” by gruntzooki is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.