Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan has some powerful enemies.
While discussing Khan’s work taking on tech monopolies with Jon Stewart on Monday night’s Daily Show, Stewart shared that he’d originally planned to interview the FTC chair on the podcast for his Apple TV+ series The Problem With Jon Stewart–until his bosses there asked him not to.
Nominated by President Biden to the FTC in 2021 when she was just 31 years old, Khan is best known for her work in antitrust and competition law. Under her leadership, the Commission has launched several high-profile lawsuits against tech giants Microsoft, Meta and Amazon.
“I wanted to have you on a podcast and Apple asked us not to do it,” Stewart told Khan Monday.
“They literally said, ‘Please don’t talk to her,’” he continued. “Like, what is that sensitivity? Why are they so afraid to even have these conversations out in the public sphere?”
“I think it just shows the danger of what happens when you concentrate so much power and so much decision making in a small number of companies,” answered Khan.
Apple canceled The Problem With John Stewart last October. At the time The New York Times reported that while the split was an amicable one, Apple and Stewart had clashed over the topics he was planning to cover in the show’s third season.
Ahead of his return to The Daily Show in February, Stewart said of his break with Apple, “They decided … they felt that they didn’t want me to say things that might get me in trouble.”
Best interview I have seen with a public official in decades. I feel better knowing Ms. Khan is running the show at the FTC. The current FTC and the Justice Department are doing their jobs to look out for the public’s interest rather than corporate goals; miles apart from the previous administation’s record in both departments.