In this file photo, Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., listens during a confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2020, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Anna Moneymaker/The New York Times via AP, Pool, File)
U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), a vocal critic of big tech, said the antitrust lawsuit filed on Tuesday by the Department of Justice against Google has the potential to become the biggest strike against monopoly power since the Microsoft case settled in 2001.
"This new case will be the most significant antitrust case in a generation and certainly since the Microsoft case, and I think it has the potential to be bigger than the Microsoft case because Google is a more powerful platform, a more powerful company than Microsoft was," Hawley told Cheddar's J.D. Durkin on Tuesday.
He agrees with critics of the Microsoft case that it should have gone further, but maintains that it still helped spur the startup boom of the early 2000s.
"People often say, well, it really wasn't that successful, but actually if you look at the surge in tech startups that occurred during and immediately after the Microsoft case, I think you can see that taking on Microsoft had a significant pro-competition, pro-innovation effect," he said.
The senator also stressed that this is a critical moment for antitrust law in the U.S.
"Let's just be honest here, the stakes are high for the Department of Justice," he said. "They need to prosecute this case to the fullest extent of their abilities, and they need to get a win. They need to show that antitrust law still has an important part to play in the 21st century economy, and I believe they'll do that."
Sabrina Siddiqui, National Politics Reporter at The Wall Street Journal, joins to break down the SNAP funding delays and the human cost of the ongoing shutdown.
Arguments at the Supreme Court have concluded for the day as the justices consider President Donald Trump's sweeping unilateral tariffs in a trillion-dollar test of executive power.
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate Wednesday for a second time this year as it seeks to shore up economic growth and hiring even as inflation stays elevated. The move comes amid a fraught time for the central bank, with hiring sluggish and yet inflation stuck above the Fed’s 2% target. Compounding its challenges, the central bank is navigating without much of the economic data it typically relies on from the government. The Fed has signaled it may reduce its key rate again in December but the data drought raises the uncertainty around its next moves. Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters that there were “strongly differing views” at the central bank's policy meeting about to proceed going forward.
U.S. and Chinese officials say a trade deal between the world’s two largest economies is drawing closer. The sides have reached an initial consensus for President Donald Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to aim to finalize during their high-stakes meeting Thursday in South Korea. Any agreement would be a relief to international markets. Trump's treasury secretary says discussions with China yielded preliminary agreements to stop the precursor chemicals for fentanyl from coming into the United States. Scott Bessent also says Beijing would make “substantial” purchases of soybean and other agricultural products while putting off export controls on rare earth elements needed for advanced technologies.
