I'm John Batchel with my good colleague, Professor Richard Epstein, entertaining always from the Humphrey Executor's decision of 1935 during the Roosevelt era of the New Deal to 2025, in a case just argued before the Supreme Court, Trump versus slaughter,

that deals with the same issue.

Does the President have the authority to fire and hire from independent boards under his

article of the Constitution?

That's Article 2.

Does he retain that power in the face of criticism? Of note here, Mr. Trump is decided

to fire a woman named Slaughter. That's why it's Trump v. Slaughter. And she is protesting her being

fired from an independent board. That is the case argued before the court. Of relevance here

is that the FTC, the Federal Trade Commission, where Ms.

Slaughter participates or did, is also the piece that Mr. Trump and others have pointed to during

the Biden administration is something that the president, Mr. Biden, took over with

executive order 14036, 14-036, Mr. Biden, took over with Executive Order 14036, 14-036, called Promoting Competition in the American

Economy. Mr. Biden's idea of promoting competition was to establish Chairwoman Lena Kahn

as the administration's attempt to use ideology to enforce business decisions, decisions about business.

The FTC.

Okay.

Lena Kahn turned into what some critics have said as the head of not an regulatory agency,

but an enforcement agency, like a cop, refusing to vouchsafe

American big business in many instances, including some of our most successful companies.

You have to believe that has influenced Mr. Trump in firing Ms. Slaughter from this very same FTC.

This all gets tangled up, and Richard's here to untangle it,

because the court, in hearing the oral arguments, was keen on Humphrey's executor, the power

...