The Trump administration’s antitrust honeymoon is over

“It’s nothing personal, Sonny. It’s just business.”

This quote was first delivered by mob leader Michael Corleone in The godfatherBut last Monday, it became… Letter title By Justice Department Acting Antitrust Chief Omid Asefi. at a George Washington University event co-hosted with the publication MelexAsefi described an agency that is firing on all cylinders, standing strong against bad corporate actors when justified, but open to reasonable negotiations to reach the strongest possible outcome.

Implicitly, Asefi was responding to months of complaints that his agency bends to corporate lobbyists and bashes weak settlements. Last summer, two of Asefi’s former top vice presidents, Gail Slater, They were expelled For what the agency called “disobedience”; One later He claimed Two Justice Department officials “perverted justice and acted inconsistently with the rule of law.” In February, Slater suddenly I left the agencythe next It states that it has been marginalized Regarding key decisions (which were denied by the Ministry of Justice). Weeks later, the company settled its high-profile battle with Live Nation-Ticketmaster in a decision-making player He described it as confusing. A few days before Asefi’s speech at George W. University, The Wall Street Journal published Full account so far For the events leading up to Slater’s departure and settlement with Live Nation, describing behind-the-scenes dealings between the Trump administration and MAGA-aligned lobbyists like Mike Davis, who tweeted: “Good riddance” when Slater left. The Ministry of Justice denied any unwanted dealings.

But at the Antitrust Division, Asefi said his staff “ignores the noise and is focused on helping the American people we are honored to serve.” He said the department’s mission is to engage in “the tireless pursuit of holding wrongdoers accountable.” Hyman Roth was then quoted in the The Godfather Part Two: “This is the work we have chosen.”

Much of the antitrust world seems remarkably skeptical. As lawyers flocked to D.C. for the American Bar Association’s annual spring antitrust meeting last week, hope that President Donald Trump’s administration would take antitrust concerns seriously appeared to be fading. Previous implementers warned of creeping corporate influence and a decline in implementation. While Asefi and other officials responded to these criticisms, the allies at one point questioned whether they were serious about enforcing the law.

At an event later in the week, one of Slater’s fired antitrust deputies, Roger Alford, compared Asefi to a different movie criminal: corrupt police chief Captain Louis Reno in Casablanca. The acting antitrust chief was “doing his best Captain Reno,” “I was shocked.” I was shocked “There is gambling in this establishment,” Alford said. “And what we have now are basically specious claims that we are shocked, I was shocked In any reference to a policy in antitrust enforcement at the federal level.

Now, the question on most people’s lips is not whether the Trump administration cares about antitrust, but whether anyone else has the resources to intervene.

During the first year of Trump’s second administration in 2025, A.J A delicate, bipartisan, populist coalition of antitrust enforcement It was still holding on weakly. This spring meeting week saw Slater speak at a Y Combinator event downtown that hosted both former Trump advisor Steve Bannon and former Biden FTC Chair Lena Khan — who was appointed by Vice President J.D. Vance praised once As one of the few Biden officials “they are doing a very good job.” But the administration was already pushing potential allies away. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission barred the leaders from attending the spring meeting, Belief that the ABA is allied with Democrats. The administration has decimated federal regulatory agencies, raising questions about how they can continue to function as effective oversight bodies.

Freed from their jobs and the restrictions imposed by the Trump administration, both Slater and Alford appeared at this year’s spring meeting. Slater received applause during her surprise appearance on the keynote panel. “I’m really happy to be here this year while I still have my law license,” Alford joked, apparently referring to a conservative figure. An effort to discipline him By DC bar for speaking out about what he saw at the Department of Justice.

While some individuals and a large swath of Republican state prosecutors remain committed to holding high-profile prosecutions, former allies appear shaken by the administration’s recent compromises. “We should have a working assumption that the Department of Justice and the FTC will not engage in aggressive enforcement of the antitrust laws over the next three years,” Alford said in a panel discussion at an ABA event. One exception might be cases of big tech companies, he said, where he says there are lobbyists “on both sides, so they kind of cancel each other out.” These situations can include: Appealing the Judgment of Remedies In the Google Search case, an appeal of the FTC’s loss in the Google search case The alleged monopoly situationand two additional alleged monopoly cases that have not yet been tried Amazon and apple.

Speaking with reporters afterward, Alford expressed his astonishment at what happened last year. “We didn’t know we were going to be passed over like this. I mean it never happened like this in the first administration ever,” Alford said. He believed Slater was and is a “real populist” who “wanted to enforce the laws, and we were all shocked by it all.” When asked whether top Justice Department officials were serious about aggressive antitrust enforcement, Alford wasn’t sure. “I don’t think so. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to say that.”

Former Federal Trade Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, Democrat Who was fired by President Donald Trump Last year, he also said he was unsure whether this administration was serious about going after Big Tech and monopolies in general. “I think some people were, but I don’t know,” he said. Edge This was on the sidelines of an event hosted by the American Economic Liberties Project (AELP).

Bedoya and Alford are among those who are now pinning their hopes on state law enforcement to carry the torch of tough antitrust enforcement. There’s a reason to do this: while Six countries With Republican attorneys general settling alongside the Justice Department, 34 attorneys general chose to continue litigation against Live Nation, including 13 Republicans. Several state attorneys general have committed to taking up other cases that federal enforcement has chosen not to, such as the merger between media companies Nexstar and Tegna. Bedoya pointed to several Republican attorneys general who he believes are carrying out aggressive antitrust enforcement. “It’s really important to separate what’s going on with this administration, with people who call themselves Democrats and Republicans,” he said. “This is a very specific type of governance that I think is very separate from what you see at the state level.”

“What is happening now is not normal, unacceptable, and dangerous,” Colorado Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser said during the AELP event. “The extent to which people tolerate this situation poses a long-term threat to our future.” “Right now, we see state attorneys general and state attorneys general policing chaos and corruption at the federal level, which we haven’t seen since Watergate.”

Weiser, part of the coalition continuing to litigate the Live Nation case, said they have “more evidence of a monopoly exploiting its monopoly power than I thought I would ever see in my lifetime… If you think about the delta from the quality of the evidence to the weakness of the settlement, it’s embarrassing.” Live Nation has denied the allegations and is currently defending them in court.

However, the state’s resources are dwarfed by those of the federal government, and the more cases it needs to handle itself, the more stretched it becomes. If the federal government doesn’t enforce antitrust laws, Congress should allocate money to states to do so, Weiser said. In the absence of that, Weiser admitted that the workload wouldn’t be easy to handle, but “when you’re forced, when you’re exhausted, when you’re inspired, there’s only so much you can do.”

At an event hosted by FGS Global and traffic lightsThe Justice Department’s Asefi praised the states’ role in enforcing antitrust laws. “I hope that the states can chew what they say as much as they say, and are able to chew it, but it is difficult,” he said. He defended the Justice Department’s settlement as a “great win” and said they got “more relief than anyone else in history against Live Nation.” This easing includes capping some Ticketmaster service fees, more transparency for artists, and allowing other promoters to book at the 13 venues it operates. To this point, no one else has gotten as much out of the company as his team, he said.

In his response to allegations of undue corporate influence on stage next to FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson, Asefi dismissed the criticism as model politics. “I think it’s important to know that lobbyists were not created in 2025. They have been around for a long time,” Asefi said. “We’ll meet anyone…but that doesn’t give you anything and you’re certainly not entitled to results.” News reports make these lobbyists “seem much stronger and more powerful than they are,” he said. “Sometimes we read these articles and you laugh and you’re like, ‘Oh, really?’

Ferguson’s tone was more challenging. “There’s pressure. It’s Washington. It doesn’t affect my decision-making,” Ferguson said. “I understand that the press enjoys its obscenity. And I’m also convinced that part of what’s going on here is that the press enjoys writing stories about people who in the last administration, and the administration before that, were not lobbyists because all the lobbyists were Democrats on K Street. And now there are some Republicans, and it’s really fun for the press to write about them.”

The Trump administration’s “tough business” approach ostensibly amounts to something friendlier than that Regulating gang technology. There is no threat of a broken leg – just the promise of mutually beneficial deals. Is this a viable alternative to playing antitrust cop? The results of the Live Nation trial may offer some clues: If the states lose, the Justice Department settlement may still be the largest concession ever taken away from the company, but if it wins, it could look like a weak settlement. The upcoming Big Tech cases will test the limits of corporate lobbying and the power of agencies to play hardball. Meanwhile, states may find themselves wondering whether their federal counterparts will give up the guns and take up the cannoli.