The President's Economic Full-Court Press

This is a new era of American innovation. Google AI is helping Americans stay safe from scams, from real-time scam detection on pixel to proactive fishing blocking in Gmail. Learn more at g.co slash American Innovation. Google is offering free AI training and tools to U.S. small businesses so they can innovate in ways both big and small. Built by Google experts, the Google AI Professional Certificate equipped small businesses with practical AI skills. Through hands-on projects, they can start using AI to get more done and unlock new opportunities for their business. This is a new era of American innovation. Find out more at grow.com Google slash business. I'm Jimmy Fala. I'm Madison Allworth. I'm Bill Hemmer, and this is the Fox News Rundown. Friday, April 17, 2026. I'm Jessica Rosenthal. Will higher gas prices impact the president's economic message and offset the promise of bigger refund checks this tax season? Every week when they fill up for gas or they buy groceries, they've got a real-world check. So as long as that's moving in the wrong direction for them, they may be happy about a better than expected or better than last year refund. But if it's not offsetting that daily, weekly reminder they're getting, that's a much more powerful message. that's feeding into their psyche every week. I'm Chris Foster. The world's biggest live entertainment company, Live Nation, is ruled to be an illegal monopoly harming ticket buyers, venue owners, and performers. Ticketmaster controls this entire ecosystem. I'm Brown-A-Lyman. I've got the final word on the Fox News rundown.

The week began with a White House message on tax refunds, with the president accepting a food delivery order from Sharon Simmons, who wore a T-shirt that said, Door Dash Grandma. The refund was the biggest you've ever had. Is that it for you saying? It definitely was. Yeah, I saved over $11,000 by not having to claim. Was that surprising, Jim? It was very surprising. Very surprising. It's a great big, beautiful bill. The president wanted to highlight the effects of the bill during this tax week when it comes to no taxes on tips or overtime. But before that, Fox business anchor Maria Bartaromo asked the president on Sunday morning futures if rising gas prices due to conflict with Iran will come down by this fall. I hope so. I mean, I think so. It could be. It could be or the same or maybe a little bit higher, but it should be around the same. I think this won't be that much longer. He later walked that back a bit saying gas prices will drop soon and be much lower by this fall's midterms. Later in the week, in the White House briefing room, Fox business reporter Edward Lawrence, asked Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, The tax gains that you talked about through the one big, beautiful bill, is that going to offset the consternation from Americans, for lack of a better term, over the $4 gas gallon gas? Well, again, as I said, no one's ever objected to more money in their pocket. So the Americans have more money. They can decide how they want to spend it. The president pushed his economic message in Las Vegas last night and will do so again today at a Turning Point USA event at Dream City Church in Phoenix, Arizona. There's been some rumblings within GOP circles that they want him to stay on message, that he's the best campaigner they feel like when he gets out there on the trail. Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream is also the host of the Live in the Bream podcast. You know how much he loves these speeches and these events when he's on the ticket, but they want him to show that same kind of energy and focus when it's the midterm ticket, which in so many ways will impact his ability to do anything moving forward if the House and or Senate change hands to Democrat control. So, yeah, he's going to go out there and talk about the good things that are coming, the better tax refunds, that hope is on the way. Iran's going to wrap up. Gas prices are going to be lower than ever. But he runs into the same problem that the Biden administration had. coming off the terrible spikes in inflation, saying, hey, the data looks good. Good things are coming. But if people do not feel it, it shows up in our polling, all of our recent polling and most of what's out there, that people still are very pessimistic about the economy, their personal financial situation. So he's got to go out there and make the case that there are good things coming and you will feel it soon. Yeah, the average increase in the refund is about $350 more. But gas prices are up about 85 cents a gallon year over year. If people feel the refund increase is canceled out by these rising gas prices, I imagine that's a problem, just especially in terms of the messaging earlier on in the administration, they were really pumped about low gas prices.

And the thing is, that's a daily check for people. We talk about this all the time. You can hear data floating around. Most people are not into the nuances of the unemployment reports and the jobs reports that come out like we are. That's our job. But they do know every week when they fill up for gas or they buy groceries, they've got a real world check. So as long as that's moving in the wrong direction for them, they may be happy about a better than expected or better than last year refund. But if it's not offsetting that daily, weekly reminder they're getting, That's a much more powerful message that's feeding into their psyche every week. When it comes to Iran specifically, Secretary Scott Bessent said this week, they are now engaged in economic fury, Operation Economic Fury. This is like a financial blockade of sorts. I sent a letter to some banks in Hong Kong, China, UAE and Oman saying we want to freeze Iranian funds. And he told countries, if you buy Iranian oil and Iranian money sitting in your banks, we will apply secondary sanctions to you. What do we know about? how Iran deals with maximum economic pressure because we're seeing they've begun sentencing and even hanging protesters again. Yeah, and you know, with any of these sanctions that we do around the globe, it's always, okay, does leadership escape that? I mean, the leadership of the country usually has a way around the things that end up destroying the economy or really hurting the country's economy in a way that affects the real people, which at this point, that's the last thing we're trying to do is to telegraph to the Iranian people that we're about hurting them. I mean, the message is trying to get to them, you know, that we are here for you. You guys are going to have to rise up and take the reins from here. loosening the grip of this leadership. But leadership's always going to have access to different funding and friends abroad and all kinds of things that the average Iranian is not likely going to have. So when you talk about things like stopping the waivers that they have been getting for a long time with respect to money that they can access, oil that they can sell, there are a lot of new things that Scott Bessent says are going to happen and are going to involve our partners in the region. Whether that's enough to rattle the leadership, it's going to hurt the people, whether it's not enough to go after leadership remains to be seen. Yeah, regardless of when this conflict ends, Shannon, there's a lot of recovery to be had here, right? Damage to Gulf facilities, both oil and LNG facilities in Saudi Arabia and the UAE come to mind. There's this concern that all of that could impact the economy much longer, even after the strait would reopen and there's a free flow of ships again, right? This might be a longer term effort.

Why you see members, even some, you know, on both sides of the aisle saying, we've got to be really careful with the infrastructure and the energy production and those kinds of things because if you did get a change in leadership of somebody that we think is much more, much less theocratic and much more leaning towards sort of some Western ideals, these people are going to need a way to rebuild so that they have hope, they can move forward, they've got industry, they do have the income from different production of crude and oil and those kinds of things that would fund a resurgence of their economy. But man, there's a lot of caution about how far we go with taking out the bridges, the infrastructure, the energy production because of that in mind that you mentioned. Now, the president says in a truth social post this week that he expects a big hug from China's President Xi Jinping when they meet, I believe next month, that the Chinese president sees that he's trying to keep the Strait of Hormuz open. Meanwhile, ships are starting to come more often to the U.S. to get oil, given the straight closure. But the president also wrote that China's agreed not to send arms to Iran. What do you make of how China's been sort of positioning itself here throughout this conflict with Iran? And they are trying to play all sides to their benefit, which of course they're going to do. But as we get allegations that they're enabling satellite use or weapons or things that are allowing Iran to target U.S. targets, U.S. soldiers, that's a major issue. And you will hear the president say, like, oh, I've got a good relationship with Xi Jinping, we talk about the hug. They're going to meet mid-May. At least that's the plan at this point. But China is trying to hedge its bets on all sides. And the president was asked, too, like, have they been supplying weapons? Have they been doing this? And he sort of said something to the effect. Like, if they have been, that's not going to happen anymore. So China needs this rate to be open. And the president keeps saying, listen, we're doing you favors by allowing these shipments to be controlled in some way. So, man, to be a fly on the wall for that meeting in May. Yeah, indeed. Let's turn to Congress. Big week in the Beltway. We've had some high-profile resignations this week. Speaker Johnson was asked about protecting staffers in Congress after the resignations of Congressman Gonzalez and Eric Swalwell over sexual misconduct allegations. And he said, yes, we need to protect them from predators. He said that was his word. And that House ethics is working around the clock on investigating members. I think most of us don't really want. the ethics committee to have such a full docket investigating the people we elect. But does something need to be done here? Or is this precisely what voting every two years in the House is for? Yeah, I think people have to take that very seriously because you think about, listen, the small stuff is these are allegations. Nothing's gone to a court of law now, but clearly it's enough of a distraction that he's out of there. But if any of these things turn out to be true, especially the criminal allegations, you know, it wouldn't be something new. If these things are true, there's a pattern that's gone on for a long time. So how many people on the hill were looking the other way or knew about this? I mean, we hear about members and interns and young staffers all the time.

with certain members. And so the question becomes, Listen, voters got to take this seriously. If somebody becomes so emboldened that they continue to carry on with behavior that is really reckless and potentially criminal, they don't seem to have a fear of voters. And that can be true for any number of people up on Capitol Hill. So we have a job to do. But listen, the Ethics Committee has a very robust role, whether it's looking into fraud charges or harassment charges or whatever it is with members. They have to police their own. And there's been a lot more of that in the last couple of years it feels like. because people have been doing more shady things or ethics is just kind of ramped up and got more involved. A lot of times ethicsism is investigating things we don't know about. It's not public until there is some kind of finding or something that happens. So who knows what the ethics committee is up to right now. A lot of their work happens in secret. Shannon, before I let you go, need the legal legal brain on this one. A federal jury's found Live Nation, which owns Ticketmaster, has been acting as a monopoly. We, I think, can imagine this will likely change at some point how we purchase tickets for concerts. But before we get to that point, does this signal anything to others about mergers and acquisitions? Because we normally think of, you know, maybe the FTC and other organizations, agencies getting involved in sort of figuring out if those can go through, if they're legal. This happened at the hands of a jury well after the fact of Live Nation taking over Ticketmaster. It may shine a different spotlight and different considerations for DOJ when it looks at antitrust investigations and proposals about mergers, those kinds of things. I mean, we live in a world where it's hard to find the moms and pops in the world out there and their businesses and allow them to. flourish because there's just a lot of consolidation. I mean, it happens all the time, and the DOJ has a real role in investigating that. So, you know, here when you're talking about a group that controls all the venues or the majority of the big venues, and then a group that handles the majority of ticketing for all the big concerts and artists, the jury was like, no, this is not good for the consumer, and it's crossed a line. And so, listen, it's a huge case. It will undoubtedly be tied up in appeals for a long... time. So we'll see where the adults ultimately settles. But man, you got to feel like some on the jury were probably feeling like, yeah, finally is the consumer, these crazy ticket prices and, you know, sitting on hold for three days trying to get a ticket. I think there was some angst that was ready to come out with the jury. One more on this. The Trump administration, the DOJ settled with Live Nation, like, what, week two in this trial, but some states separately continued on. How unique was that, this sort of bifurcated ending to this?

Because it was more than 30 states who stayed with this case and said, like, no, we're going to go ahead and prosecute our interest in this too. So there are different, you know, state and federal interests. I think the end, you know, of this ends up being a headline that people, if they don't understand all of that, know that these guys got in trouble or at least temporarily. For this point, a jury has found that they've been in trouble. But you think about the recent social media cases, how there were some settlements by certain groups heading into, you know, what turned out to be a major blow against some of these companies. So everybody's got different interests when you're in that early trial phase, even pretrial phase, you know, you assess the amount of damage that may be coming your way. And whether you're willing to settle or not, and hear these states said, yeah, DOJ, do your thing. We're going to stick with the case. Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Ream, thanks for joining. It was great to be with you, Jess. Thank you.

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But in addition, there's going to be a remedy phase now where the court's going to make a determination as to what, if any, structural remedies might be appropriate, where they may force divestiture or change of policies, or there's a number of different potential options the court would have to try to structure a remedy to address the monopoly. The state AGs, they're like, look, I guess they've said their goal is we want you to sell ticket master. And there were people, whatever it was, 15, 16 years ago, and they bought ticket master that said this wasn't a bad idea. But like you say, it could end up being more of a split-the-baby thing where they're forced to make procedural changes but don't have to fundamentally break up their business. Could this judge actually go so far as that, or is that something that really needs to come down to regulators or Congress? Within the judge's power to issue structural remedies, the Google case where the DOJ recently won on the search advertising monopoly, the judge came up short of issuing a structural remedy but issued a number of policy changes that needed to be made. We are awaiting Judge Brinkima's decision on the digital advertising remedy for Google, and that's pending in the Eastern District of Virginia. And we do expect that ruling to come out imminently. It'll be interesting to see whether there is a structural proposal in her order. Yeah. If there is, let's say hypothetically, let's say there is a breakup. What do you see is the most egregious parts of this? What could reasonably be decided? Okay, Live Nation, you can't be in this business anymore. I think the control of the monopoly through the ticketing and the booking. And the actual ownership of the venues, you have a, what I would call a vertically integrated monopoly. You know, from soup to nuts, ticket master is controlling the entire ecosystem. And they're doing it on this technology platform that automatically inflates these fees that they're charging. It's something where they have got to figure out a way to allow free competition on the technological platform. And I think that could be through breaking it up. There's been a proposal, I think, with Google to break up the digital ad server and the ad exchange components and have those being operated with separate owners. That's certainly something that could promote competition. I'm reminded of movie theaters decades ago. Movie studios weren't allowed to own movie theaters. And that was part of all this. And now that went by the wayside. Have other, is antitrust enforcement? Or the definition of it has it just changed over the decades. Do we care less? We meaning the U.S. government.

Yeah, I got out of law school in the 1990s, and the advice I got was you should not be an antitrust litigator because that's a dying field. I can tell you today's antitrust practice is as busy as it's been in my 34 years of practice. There are antitrust cases all across the country. A lot of them have to do with big tech, and a lot of it is because they can wield their technological. Wald Garden in a way to exclude all competition. You're seeing the NFL do it now with their streaming services. And they, of course, have an antitrust exemption, but you could see Congress debating whether that's still appropriate. Yeah. And the NFL story, along with Ticketmaster and social media, I wonder if because so much of this is consumer facing, this isn't. some relatively arcane industry that nobody really knows or cares about people, want to watch football, people want to go to concerts. I wonder if that's why we're seeing more of this. I think it's a combination. I think certainly from a consumer point of view, when you get your tickets to the concert and you can see right there the service fees that are being charged, it's multiples of what they used to be. There's been some behavioral issues that I think front and center. I think I know if you saw some of the texts that the DOJ pulled together from the internal executives at Ticketmaster, but it's intentionally taking advantage of consumers that is just not a very popular activity. I spoke almost exactly a year ago with Dan Wall. He's Live Nations in-house counsel, or at least one of them. And I'm going to tell you some of his arguments that I know you've heard and that they made in court. They're going to say, look. This is a ruthless business model that we have, but it's a very effective business model. And it's a legal business model. It's not illegal to be good at what you do. What tips it over into not just being a good business model into being an illegal one? It's really about market power. To have the ability to price things well above the actual value of the service reflects that they have complete control with this ecosystem. And once you have, once you're a monopolist, once you've got, I think the numbers, you know, 80, 90% market share. You have obligations to the other participants in the market, and it's the same with Google, where they've got a 98% market share of ad serving on the open web. Once you have that level of control, you can't start setting the rules in a way that stifles competition. Talking about the venues, there was testimony during this trial from the Barclay Center CEO in Brooklyn, an arena, sort of like a hockey basketball-sized arena. John Monde, he says that Live Nation told you literally, we will divert concerts if you start using Seat Geek as a ticketer. Live Nation denies it, but that's where the venue stuff comes in. Dan Wall told me, look, we're a very small player relatively in this. We have one arena. We have a piece of a few.

theaters and no, you know, stadiums, but I guess the jury said, well, that's enough. Yeah, that kind of threat, which is do what I tell you or we're going to take away your business, that certainly demonstrates the anti-competitive nature of this monopoly control that they were found to have. So, yeah, I think any time where a monopolist is issuing threats to do business with me or else, that's going to be a problem. We talk about ticket buyers because that's what most of us are. If you can, speak a little bit, the effect on artists here, too, where they're more limited and where they can make money. Yeah, it's the control of the ecosystem, right? So if they want their tickets to be sold through Ticketmaster, which the vast majority are, obviously, they've got to agree to certain venues and certain promotions. And it really kind of stifles their ability to make free decisions about where they want to play. So I think this is actually a boon to the artists as well. If I'm buying tickets today, obviously nothing changes. I don't know when, if any time it changes. What could end up changing for somebody that doesn't care about the business and just wants to pay less? This country is founded on free market capitalism. And where these companies are crossing the line is when they gather a monopoly power and use it. in an anti-competitive way where competition gets stifled. And really, in an antitrust case, courts often look to how has an antitrust injury occurred, not just harm to an individual competitor, although that can be enough, but how has the market been harmed? So a lot of these cases get into, use these PhD economists to address how the market itself has been harmed. The most obvious way is where the prices being charged to consumers are inflated because of the monopoly. I do think there will be the ability for companies to compete more fairly if there are structural remedies or if there are rule changes imposed by the court. I think that's certainly something where you have an overpriced monopolist getting fair competition from others. I think that allows the consumer to have options in terms of how much they want to pay.

John Herman and attorney, chairman and founding partner of Herman Jay Jones, LLP. John, thank you. Thanks for having me. This is a new era of American innovation. Google is offering free AI training to U.S. small businesses with a Google AI professional certificate so they can start using AI to get more done. Learn more at G.com slash American Innovation. 2026 marks 250 years of America. And throughout the year, Bill Hammer takes listeners on a journey through the 250 most impactful moments in American history. Listen and follow now at foxnewspodcasts.com. Subscribe to this podcast at foxnewspodcasts.com. It's time for your Fox News Commentary. Brianna Lyman. What's on your mind? California Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell announced Sunday that he was suspending his bid for governor after former staffer and several other women came forward with allegations of sexual misconduct. CNN's Brian Seltter said Eric Swalwell ending his bid is, quote, among other things, a testament to the power of investigative reporting. But the victory lap that Seltre and so many others are taking looks more like a last-ditch attempt to cover for the corporate media's complicity in a story that appears to be an open secret in Democrat circles for more than a decade. The dam broke after the San Francisco Chronicle reported on allegations made by a former staffer who accused Eric Swalwell of sexual assault. CNN released a follow-up report that not only provided additional details of the alleged assault, but also included more alleged victims. Eric Swalwell has denied the claims. But the allegations were not just uncovered or recently discovered. Australian Strategic Policy Institute reporter Bethany Allen said in a now deleted post on X that, quote, rumors about Eric Swalwell's sexual misconduct have swirled in D.C. for years. I first heard these rumors in 2020 in the course of my other reporting about Eric Swalwell. I was neither a politics reporter nor a woman's issue reporter, so I could not chase them down. In response to criticism from Stephen Miller on X over her lack of reporting on such allegations, Allen said she, quote, very much wanted to report it out myself. But Me Too stories on the Hill aren't related to my beat as much as I personally wish I could report them out. I passed the tip along to colleagues on the Hill beat. Then there is a 2017 CNN report that alleged that, quote, more than half a dozen interviewees independently named one California congressman for pursuing female staffers, but that the outlet would not name the congressman because the stories are unverified.

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