We Talked to a Trump Whistleblower. What He Saw Will Shock You.

There are a whole variety of different things that I wish I could share about the threats that were made against us.

In 2025, Roger Alford took a job in President Trump's Department of Justice because he believed he could help people.

I thought we were going to be focused on the average American.

Roger's job was to investigate powerful corporate monopolies.

Live Nation, the owner of Ticketmaster, runs a harmful monopoly.

He noticed a disturbing trend.In order to get their mergers approved, a lot of these companies were hiring million -dollar fixers to cut shady backroom deals.And when Roger and others spoke up, they were fired.

It was a genuine shock.

What Roger saw is just the tip of the iceberg.We investigated, and what we found was a pattern of corruption that goes all the way to the top.Massive corporations buying off the government agencies that are meant to protect us, and instead leaving us vulnerable to limited choices, junk fees, and sky -high prices.

This is the reason we have those laws.Companies should not be able to treat people that way.These were jam jobs.

These were politically driven deals waved through because the right lobbyists or the right payoffs happened.

We'll show you the pattern we uncovered and introduce you to the unprecedented bipartisan team that's stepping up to protect working Americans from corporate greed.

We're going to do right by our consumers.We've got a job to do.

For the last 40 years, across administrations from both parties, politicians have mostly been content to let corporations keep getting bigger and more powerful.But in recent years, something has started to shift.

The federal government is suing to block the largest supermarket merger in U .S.history.Arguing that it would reduce the number of supermarkets, which would mean higher prices.

Today, the Justice Department and eight states sued software company RealPage.alleging it illegally helped landlords unfairly fix prices and raise rents throughout the country.

At the end of the first Trump administration, there were very large and significant monopoly cases that were brought against Facebook and against Google.

When Lena Kahn took over the Federal Trade Commission under President Biden, she and her colleagues in the Department of Justice continued those suits and filed dozens more.

Department of Justice has launched an antitrust probe into United Health.

The move is part of the Biden's administration push to lower Drug breaking news this hour, the Federal Trade Commission and 17 states are accusing Amazon of anti -competitive behavior.

Overcharging people by upwards of a billion dollars, making the product worse.

I would be a huge supporter of Lena Kahn remaining and I would love to see Lena Kahn given more power.

And I guess I look at Lena Kahn as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I actually think is doing a pretty good job.

We're seeing this like really interesting awakening on the left, but also importantly on the right around technology platforms, but also like concentration throughout.the economy in general.

That's Gayle Slater, President Trump's pick to lead the antitrust division of the Department of Justice.She was confirmed with 78 votes in the Senate, in part because she represented this shifting consensus, this idea that the government really needed to do more to protect us from concentrated corporate power.She was also Roger Alford's boss.

I thought we were going to be carrying forward the legacy cases that the Biden administration had brought and then also bringing new cases.

But there was another powerful group with a very different agenda for President Trump's second term.

I think the companies are saying, you know what, we got a once in a lifetime opportunity to get to.Let's call our banker.Let's call Morgan Stanley and let's buy our biggest competitor and let's, you know, get it so that we can raise price because it's about time.I mean, so we let's get scale.

For a minute there, you sounded like Lena Kahn.

Yeah, I don't want to.overspoke there.

This growing bipartisan antitrust movement, it was a huge threat to Wall Street.And so companies started looking for ways to get around it.Exhibit A, the very first merger that came across Roger Alford's desk.

Good morning, happy Tuesday.Hewlett Packard Enterprise looking to buy Juniper Networks.

This was the first really big merger that would send a signal about whether or not we were serious about antitrust enforcement or not.It was a so -called three to two merger, three competitors becoming two competitors.And that is usually just a huge red flag.

Just a few weeks after Trump's inauguration, Roger's team at the Department of Justice announced that they would be suing to block this merger.They said that it would reduce competition and raise wireless prices for hospitals, universities and other customers.

And we were all set to go, ready to go to trial.

That's when Roger's boss, Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater, got a phone call from one of the fixers that Hewlett -Packard had hired to push their deal through.

He basically said, I'm going to destroy you.I'm going to do everything I can to make your life miserable.

And he could.The fixer was a man named Mike Davis.Davis caught Trump's eye back in 2022, when he was all over cable news defending Trump from federal charges.

This guy is tough as hell.We want him in a very high capacity.Mike Davis.Mike.Thank you, Mike.Where's Mike?

Mike is great.

Mike Davis actually recommended Gail Slater to President Trump for the top antitrust job.Davis has denied the threatening phone call, but it is true that a couple of weeks after the election, he started getting big checks from corporations like Hewlett Packard Enterprise, who wanted him to use his connections to push their mergers through.

His salary is $300 ,000 a month.He has a contingency fee of over a million dollars.any successful mergers.

They hire this lobbyist and the lobbyist starts talking to higher ups saying, you like us, we're on your team.Just tell them to drop the case.

And they did.DOJ sources told The Wall Street Journal that a couple of weeks after the threatening phone call, Gayle Slater's boss, quote, placed a document on her desk.It was a settlement deal.written by Hewlett Packard Enterprise's own lawyers.

It was a genuine shock.

When Gail Slater asked her boss what would happen if she refused to sign it, he told her, quote, she was too difficult to fire, but he would fire her deputies.She signed and then he fired them anyway.

And we all basically strongly suggested that that was inappropriate.And as a result of that, I was terminated.

The shares of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, they're up more than 12 percent after the DOJ gave the green light for the proposed $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks.

This is oligarchy in action.Company gets sued.They hire a million dollar fixer with the president's ear to leverage his loyalty and make sure that the suit goes away.They get a sweetheart deal.And then when someone like Roger Alford gets in the way, they make sure he gets fired.

This type of Let's call it pay -for -play politics.Hadn't happened since Watergate.They're dropping cases because they decided someone's a friend.That's not the rule of law.That's the opposite of the rule of law.

A few months later, one of America's most hated companies decided to try the same play for themselves.

outrage over Ticketmaster and Live Nation gouging consumers on big concerts.

After decades of buying up its competitors, Ticketmaster Live Nation had consolidated control over ticketing, promotion and venues.

Nothing's gotten better through this Ticketmaster Live Nation merger.

Tickets have only gotten higher and more expensive.In 2024, the Department of Transportationunder President Biden sued Ticketmaster Live Nation in hopes of breaking it up.A bunch of state attorneys general signed on to the suit as well, including Phil Weiser of Colorado and Jonathan Scrimetti of Tennessee.

There was tremendous evidence of very aggressive, almost mafia -like tactics.We had some witnesses.They would get a phone call and it was basically like, hey, nice, nice arena you have there.Be ashamed if anything happened to it.You know, we have the internal conversations laughing about how dumb their customers are and how great it is that they can rip them off.

The messages between two ticketing directors saying, these people are so stupid.Another message saying, robbing them blind, baby.

When President Trump took office in 2025, his Department of Justice decided to continue the Ticketmaster suit.Ticketmaster thought they would try the same play as Hewlett Packard Enterprise.They hired Kellyanne Conway.Trump's former campaign manager as a fixer.They donated to Trump's inaugural fund, and they hired Mike Davis, the same fixer who got Hewlett Packard Enterprise their sweetheart deal.Davis went after Roger Alford's boss, Gail Slater.

Once it became clear that Gayle Slater was going to resolve these cases on the merits and wasn't going to listen to Mike Davis based on arguments other than the merits, he turned on her.He directly lobbied the president of the United States to get someone who was committed to enforcing the antitrust laws on the merits.to be removed.

The head of the Justice Department's antitrust division is out.Gail Slater was fired today from the role after months of tension with the Trump administration.

The moment Gail Slater's firing hit the news, Live Nation's stock price skyrocketed.Shareholders were anticipating big payouts on the backs of consumers.

Robbing them blind, baby.

And then two weeks after she was fired.

The Justice Department has reached a settlement with Live Nation in its antitrust case.Not everyone is on board.The proposed settlement didn't even rise to the level.

Live Nation wouldn't have to sell off Ticketmaster, just a handful of venues.So it looked like the same play had worked again.Get sued, hire a fixer, get a sweetheart deal.But there was one wrinkle for Ticketmaster.

From my perspective, this was not a sufficient settlement to take care of Tennessee consumers.

A bunch of those state AGs decided to continue with the suit, even after the Department of Justice settled.

People care about this.And we said, we're really concerned about this.We're like, not OK with us.And we're taking this case without the federal government.It's now a coalition of states.

And then something unexpected happened.

The states actually won.A federal jury in New York found Ticketmaster and Live Nation violated antitrust laws.

But every company that thinks that it can skate on antitrust just because an administration may not prioritize that really has to account for the states now.

Meanwhile, the higher ups at DOJ are still letting corporations run the same play as HPE and Ticketmaster.They let two major owners of local TV stations, Nexstar and Tegna, merge without even an investigation.

The president put up a social media post and said, let the deal through.Now, we don't know exactly what happened behind those scenes, but I want to underscore how unusual that is.

There was no DOJ investigation when the country's largest real estate brokerage, Compass, wanted to buy its rival anywhere.Now they're free to saddle middle class homebuyers with even more junk fees in a housing market we can already barely afford.Compass even hired Mike Davis, the same fixer that got HPE and LiveNation their deals.But nothing has made the corruption more clear than the Department of Justice's recent approval of the merger between Paramount and Warner Brothers.The deal puts one of Trump's top political donors at the head of thea media empire that will include CNN, CBS, and HBO.

And according to the Wall Street Journal, the staff attorneys in the antitrust division were leaning towards suing to prevent this merger.But again, they were overruled by the top brass at the Department of Justice.State AGs are teaming up to challenge the HPE, Nexstar and Compass mergers in court, and they're considering whether to do the same for Paramount.But there's a lot more that our political leaders at the national level could be doing to protect us from these monopolies.

It is possible that you can try to undo some of the mergers.

Senators Cory Booker and Amy Klobuchar have both introduced legislation that would unwind any merger suspected of being pushed through using backroom deals.

And if you entered into corrupt agreements with Donald Trump or agreements against the law and public interest, we're going to unwind your merger.

Vigorous antitrust enforcement is a bipartisan issue.This is not a left -right issue.

I don't want to live in an economy where based on a company's political power or favoritism or ability to do pay -for -play politics means they get a free pass and can take advantage of and gouge consumers.

The president ran on trying to help the average American, rural, non -college -educated individuals to try to improve their lives.

Starting the day I take the oath of office, I will rapidly drive prices down and we will Make America affordable again.We're going to make it affordable again.

To squander the opportunity, the lost opportunity, to try to help the average American when that's what the president ran on.Why would you do that?

Thanks so much for watching.Be sure to like and subscribe to get more More Perfect Union in your feed and drop us a line if you have ideas for what we should do next.next.You can do that at stories at perfectunion .us.Thanks again.