The federal government has filed multiple lawsuits aimed at helping reduce the costs of everything from rent to groceries for consumers. But these lawsuits face a steep uphill battle. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The federal government has filed multiple lawsuits aimed at helping reduce the cost of everything from rent to groceries for consumers. But these lawsuits face a steep uphill battle. First of all, let me tell you something. This is something that Biden has delivered. Right. He says, I’ve gotta do something about runaway prices, because inflation is something that he’s working against in this election. He said, well, let me figure it out. Let’s do something about it. So he said to the departments that should be doing something, the DOJ and the folks that should be hands-on, go do something. The American people are tired of hearing me talk about how bad it is. Go do something. So he’s ordered them to do it. And this is really a wonderful thing that are you seeing this reported in media? I mean, in mainstream media, corporate media?
Farron Cousins: No, These stories just kind of fizzled out. And what’s weird, they fizzled, even though the lawsuits, they’re happening right now, one of the actual trials.
Mike Papantonio: Right. As we speak.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, they’re in court.
Mike Papantonio: In Oregon.
Farron Cousins: And the DOJ is hammering Kroger and Albertsons over their merger.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. So let’s start from the top. Kroger and Albertsons say we want to do business together, and if we do, we’re gonna start this other company, and the other company is gonna be great for consumers. We’re gonna be bringing the prices down substantially for consumers. What a bunch of BS. I mean, it’s just absolute BS. And the media is not even talking about this story. Go ahead and start from the beginning of this.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. What we have is Kroger and Albertsons several years ago said, hey, we want to do a merger. We’re gonna become one big grocery store chain. And at the time the Senate held hearings on this, Elizabeth Warren was the loudest voice out there saying, this is going to kill consumers. You are going to destroy their incomes by jacking up these prices because of this merger. Nobody wanted to listen to her at the time. The Senate just let that investigation go. And finally, the DOJ this year said, okay, wait a minute. Wait a minute, wait a minute. No, no, no. This is very bad. You’re gonna violate monopoly laws. You’re gonna violate other federal laws. We can’t have this happen. So they finally did file the lawsuit, which as you said, they’re in trial, right this very moment in Oregon arguing that this is an illegal monopoly.
Mike Papantonio: These two companies have spent almost $1 billion just in lawyer fees, just paying lawyers $1 billion to make this happen. Now they tell you that their argument is, we’re gonna save consumers $1 billion. That’s their exact words. We’re gonna save consumers a billion dollars by what we’re doing here. Well, they know it is just absolutely a lie. They’re gonna control prices and we’re not gonna see a change and the very thing that Biden wants to accomplish here and God bless him for that is absolutely, they’re putting as much pr lobby and lawyering as they can possibly afford to stop Biden from doing that.
Farron Cousins: Well, and you know why the media is not covering this? I mean, we’re talking about major grocery store chains. Those are some of the biggest advertisers, not just in the visual media, but in the print media.
Mike Papantonio: Yes. Oh, God.
Farron Cousins: Now that’s where these paper or these grocery stores.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah. Coupons. The coupons.
Farron Cousins: Exactly. So obviously you’re not gonna have these newspapers, even the local papers going after their grocery stores because well, hey, they’re basically keeping us afloat at this point. We gotta be nice to these people.
Mike Papantonio: You know what else they’re fighting for here, Farron. It’s not just being able to charge whatever the hell they want for a carton of eggs. It is that they get able to beat unions back. That’s a big part of this. If we can merge, we can do what Amazon does. We can victimize unions. And that’s part of this. The talking point seems to be only passing on savings to consumer. It’s about taking the unions and making them disappear, isn’t it?
Farron Cousins: Absolutely. Because yeah, once you do that merger, you’re a new company. So if you already did have unionized employees there, well, guess what? It’s no longer with that specific organization. You’re gonna have to go through the process again. And at that point, they can start with their union busting. They’re kind of reprogramming, hey, no, we’re a family. You don’t want to join these bad people. We’re gonna give you better benefits.
Mike Papantonio: I think consumers are gonna win this.
Farron Cousins: I hope so.
Mike Papantonio: They’re in the right court up in Oregon. This judge seems very, very focused on what’s really happening here. He seems to understand these things we’re talking about. It’s not just about unions. It’s a big lie about how they’re gonna save money for consumers. It is a big pushback from the standpoint of a policy that I think is a tremendous policy where Biden tells his people, get to work. Okay., DOJ, do your job. Go out and do something about it. And so I really think that they’re gonna lose this case. I think Kroger Albertsons gonna lose this case. That’s my prediction. What do you think?
Farron Cousins: I hope you’re right here. And look, this is important for Merrick Garland because regardless of who wins this year’s election, he’s likely gone after this and he should be. So this is his last chance. If you want to have a single good thing you did in office, this is it, buddy. You better pull this out.
Mike Papantonio: Okay. We do news constantly. I don’t want to put you on the spot, but name one accomplishment that, I’m serious, one accomplishment that the Garland DOJ has been successful with. Does any?
Farron Cousins: So far nothing.
Mike Papantonio: Now, I don’t mean that flippantly.
Farron Cousins: Yeah, I know.
Mike Papantonio: It is nothing. And so maybe they should win this case. They really should win this case. The other part of it is we’re seeing the same thing happen, we’re seeing this also happen in the area of the internet.
Farron Cousins: The FTC.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah, yeah.
Farron Cousins: We’ve got right now there taking on RealPage, which is a real estate company, and they deal with landlords, but they’ve also got this software that they’re using and they’re letting all the landlords use it so everybody can see what everybody else is charging in rent so that they can collectively raise them together.
Mike Papantonio: It’s an antitrust case, right?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Mike Papantonio: It’s an antitrust. It’s been going on since these folks have been in business. They’re scraping information about property owners. Okay. They’re saying, you’re a landlord. You’re charging X for your apartment that, oh, by the way, is just right down the street from Y another guy that owns another set of apartments. So the guy that owns the other set says, I’m gonna charge the same thing as the guy down the street. And they understand that all they’re doing is driving up a monopoly. So, okay. Two things. We talked about food. Okay. Just basic food needs. That’s part of this. Biden said, let’s do something about it. He’s also doing something about this because he understands that rents and house prices are out of control. So this is his way of saying, let’s do something about it. Right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And again, not just with Garland, but with Biden because no matter what, he’s out of office come January, this is the end of your term. These are the last things you get to do. So make it worthwhile for the American public. Leave on a high note so that the last thing they remember from your administration is they took on these major corporations. They addressed the issues that voters say are number one to them, and they won. They can win these if they put smart lawyers on them.
Mike Papantonio: You know what they’re finding in both these cases is that new trend that defense lawyers are using. Destroy old emails. Destroy old documents. Don’t let lawyers have access to it. Make sure there’s no path here. Make sure that there’s no trail to show that, yes, we are involved in an antitrust case, or yes, Albertsons, you should not be able to do business with Kroger and create this new ridiculous company that you say is going to drop prices by a billion dollars. They actually destroyed documents there. There was a hearing about it where they said, you’ve destroyed documents, you’ve destroyed emails. That’s one big factor in that food case that I think the judge, I think the judge is gonna punish them. I really do. I think he’s gonna hammer them, man.
Farron Cousins: I would love to see it. And like you said, they’re in a good jurisdiction for this. So hopefully it goes that way.
Mike Papantonio: Yeah.
