Hello there.

Happy Thursday.

Welcome to another episode of the Chuck Toncast.

Got a terrific guest today, the former chair of the FTC, Federal Trade Commission.

Lena Kahn is going to join me for a conversation about sort of consumer protection in this age of AI, big tech, corporate consolidation,

the fact that she was one of the few Biden appointees that had a fan base on the right as well

as on the left. And I hope it's both one part education about what exactly the FTC should and can do.

And one part sort of warning, if you will, about the things that government should be doing,

but hasn't been able to do.

I, of course, believe we're in a moment here,

not dissimilar to the moment Teddy Roosevelt faced,

missed the original trust buster, if you will.

And we're in a similar period, right?

The rise of the robber barons, rise of the brolegarchs.

So I really have been looking forward to this interview. I enjoyed it. I hope you will too. But before we get to it, this was kind of, look, we have plenty of days where we say, well, this was kind of a crazy day in the Trump era. And, you know, if you just, there's, you could probably say,

yeah, about half the days you could say this was kind of a crazy day in the Trump era.

But we were felt as if the morning began. I'm speaking to you now. It's Wednesday evening

on July 16th. But this day began on Wednesday, July 16th, where we thought we were about to cover

a story is the President of the United States going to fire the Chairman of the Federal Reserve

as a way to turn the page on the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And that's exactly what it seemed to be

what was building. There was a leak of this meeting that he had. And I've, I've been in the

room when Donald Trump has shown letters. Look, I've got a firing letter. I had a bizarre

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