From the New York Times, I'm Catherine Benhold. This is The Daily.

This week, in a San Francisco courtroom, federal regulators are fighting to block one of

the biggest deals in the history of Silicon Valley. Today, my colleague, David McCabe,

on the architect of that lawsuit, Lena Khan, and the growing campaign by the Biden administration

to finally reign in Big Tech.

It's Thursday, June 29th.

David, this is only the second episode I've hosted of The Daily, and I think it is the first

the show has ever devoted to the Federal Trade Commission. That may be because, frankly,

even saying those words just made me a little sleepy. Tell me why I shouldn't be sleepy.

You shouldn't be sleepy because the Federal Trade Commission is the regulator that is tasked

with making sure that capitalism works in the United States. The cases that they bring are

bellwethers for how big companies end up getting regulated and how powerful they are able to become.

One of those cases is playing out this week. That makes a lot of sense, and that has

broken me up. Good. Okay, so tell me about this case.

We're going to start with one of the biggest deals of the decade. Microsoft's long-running

$69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

So the Federal Trade Commission is trying to stop Microsoft, which makes the Xbox video game

console, along with being involved in a ton of other businesses, from buying Activision Blizzard,

which publishes some of the biggest video games in the world.

Including Activision's first-person shooter, Cole of Juicy.

Probably most importantly, the Call of Duty franchise.

And one of the most popular mobile games, Candy Crush.

...