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It might be unprecedented for the White House to publicly discuss preferred merger conditions, but the agencies involved report to the president so its probably
by philipodonnell 9y ago
It might be unprecedented for the White House to publicly discuss preferred merger conditions, but the agencies involved report to the president so its probably naive to think that kind of politics has not always been involved.
This is a combination of a powerful company who thinks this is their moment with a lax regulatory regime and they have to take it no matter what, and also we have a president now who doesn't care about keeping up appearances or abiding precedent, so all the gross behind the scenes stuff is getting vomited up into public discourse because neither one of them care about hiding it.
- MBCook 9y agoThere has certainly been politics in the sense of what is too big or what would be too monopolistic. But from what I’ve seen there have never been specific demands from the WH. Especially not _before_ the merger was submitted. If you can find a counter example I’d love to see it. I haven’t seen any listed in the coverage I’ve seen.
- philipodonnell 9y agoLike I said, I think that's more an artifact of how easily stuff spills into public discourse with this administration than any indication that it never happened before.