‘just Not Accurate’: Trump’s Outgoing Antitrust Chief Hits Back At Critics

Omeed Assefi has spent the past year making some of the Trump administration’s biggest, and most contentious, antitrust calls — from clearing the Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger to overseeing litigation against Google and negotiating the Live Nation settlement.

A longtime Justice Department official, Assefi twice served as acting head of the Antitrust Division — first after President Donald Trump’s return to office and again after the departure of Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater. Now, after welcoming his first child with his wife, he’s leaving public service for the private sector. His last day at the Justice Department was late last month.

In an exclusive interview with POLITICO Magazine, Assefi hit back at critics who accused the Trump administration of going soft on antitrust enforcement and defended the philosophy behind the administration’s agenda.

Under Trump, he argued, the department prioritized “instant relief” for consumers over the Biden administration’s approach of spending years on uncertain courtroom battles aimed at reshaping antitrust law. He also dismissed the notion that settlements reflect weaker enforcement, saying the administration’s goal was to stop anticompetitive conduct quickly rather than punish companies for punishment’s sake.

Amid persistent questions about whether Trump himself was shaping high-profile antitrust decisions, Assefi said he never saw the president direct the outcome of a case. Instead, he said, Trump’s influence was only felt in pressing the department to move faster to make final decisions.

Assefi also forcefully rejected a report that political leadership overruled career staff during the Paramount and Warner Bros. merger review. A former career prosecutor himself, he said he knows what it looks like when staff push back against leadership — and insists that never happened.

“We just didn’t have any of that here,” he said. “It’s just not accurate.”

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

The administration came into office promising tougher scrutiny of consolidation across the economy, yet one of the biggest media mergers in years recently received DOJ approval. Why wasn't the Paramount-Warner Bros. deal the case where you decided the risks to competition outweighed the benefits?

Well, I think that's a good question. To begin with, the Trump administration's view is to give mergers a very, very rigorous review, but I think the goal is not just to block mergers for the sake of blocking them, but to give them the sort of look that we think it deserves. When you look at Paramount, that was over eight months of vigorous review.

The initial transaction was Netflix and Warner Brothers, and our team was sort of looking both at that transaction and Paramount at the same time, because we wanted to make sure that we were looking at both things simultaneously to make sure that nothing fell by the wayside, and that both companies were given a fair look. Ultimately, after eight months, we sat there, and there wasn't a single theory under the antitrust laws that we could use to justify prolonging the investigation any longer or predicating an enforcement action, and so that's why we cleared it.

What was important was not just that we cleared it, but that we actually explained our reasoning behind it. We made a very large public statement from the division that walked through the division's thinking and addressed some of the most common theories underpinning enforcement actions. We wanted people to know that this was a merits-based decision, and I've yet to hear, even weeks after the fact, a single theory under the antitrust laws that would justify an enforcement action. That's what gives us all the comfort and certainty that we made the right decision.

Can you walk me through the toughest internal debates surrounding the deal?

I can't reveal our deliberative process, but what I can tell you is that we had very lively and open discussions. I have mentioned before, but the meeting that we had with Paramount, sort of the last meeting we had with David Ellison and their team, was one of the longest meetings I've had with a party in the presence of my entire staff. And there was no time limit on questions, there were no restrictions about what they could ask and what they could not ask, to the point where after two and a half hours, I looked over at my team, my trial attorneys, my economists, and I said, “Is there anything else you want to ask? Is there anything else you want to discuss?”

I think people sometimes want to find division and want to find differences of opinion, but you can really find bits of that in any sort of investigation. What I view the Paramount decision being is one of the entire antitrust division together and not one person making a decision or somebody being overruled or something like that.

I want to ask for your response to the Wall Street Journal report that career staff were leaning toward recommending the DOJ challenge the merger, but leadership closed the investigation before that recommendation was complete. Did leadership overrule the staff's concerns?

No. And I'm not going to debate a news article put out there, but I think, as usual, there are a lot of news articles that are published that I don't think are accurate, that portray something that's totally unfamiliar to me as somebody who is in the room.

I've been a political appointee, but I've also been a line attorney. I've been at the DOJ now almost nine years, and so I know what it means to fight for a case. I know what it means to push for enforcement actions, and when you think that your supervisor might be making a decision that you don't agree with, you typically alert them to your views, you explain where you're coming from, and we just didn't have any of that here, and this is not some overrule. We had many, many, many career [employees] involved with drafting the closing statement, with reaching the decision to move on and clear the deal, and so it's just not accurate.

It is kind of fascinating to me that the article says people were considering suggesting a possible enforcement action, but it doesn't say what their theory would have been. It didn't say why they didn't voice that to their supervisors in the front office, and didn't commit it to memo form. It's a very specious argument that they were deprived of some action.

Another big decision that happened under your tenure: the Live Nation Ticketmaster settlement. The Biden DOJ brought the Live Nation case, seeking a breakup, while the Trump DOJ chose to settle it. Talk to me about what you and your team saw in that case that your predecessors got wrong.

Well, I'm not going to pick at my predecessors, and I enjoy a positive relationship with them. I think what you see in Live Nation again is a lot of media scrutiny, and I understand why, but there was an interest in getting immediate relief and moving on again from a matter where there's a lot of risk.

I think obviously the states got a liability finding that's enormous credit to them, but we will not see the fruits of that victory until this fall when Judge [Arun] Subramanian decides on what the remedies are. He could elect for a breakup, he could elect for something much more modest, and we'll just have to wait and see, and then even after he decides on what those remedies will be, there's going to be a lengthy appeal process.

I think the difference, what you see with the Trump administration, is it wants to take immediate relief, and you see that as a policy decision, right? The Trump administration likes settlements, it likes finality, and it likes instant relief, and it's cognizant of the fact that people all across our nation are affected by high prices, and they want to unlock the benefits of competition. I think what our settlement did was it opened up competition in amphitheaters, it opened up competition of primary ticketing.

I understand when people are very focused on an ultimate outcome like a breakup, they'll have the patience to wait a long time to hope and see if that happens. I think what you saw from us in the Trump administration was a focus on having that certainty and getting that relief for people, and then moving on to another industry or sector where people are hurting and people could use relief and the weight of the Department of Justice's actions.

How seriously did the department consider continuing to pursue a breakup after the change in administrations? Was there real debate internally over whether to keep litigating or settle?

I'll always refrain from describing internal deliberations, but we have very rigorous open discussions in our conference room — there's no hiding of the ball — and we discussed various different outcomes, and I'll just say that I never subscribed to the idea that the Trump administration's preferred outcome was a breakup of a company. I think our view was that there's a way to get relief to open up the market, but not give a death sentence to a company, and we stand by that.

I know a lot of people wanted, on the Google search case, probably even more aggressive remedies than the ones that I signed off on in March of 2025, and even the judge in that case, Judge [Amit] Mehta, found those remedies, which I moderated from the prior administration, to be too radical. So part of being a law enforcement professional is living in reality, seeing what judges do, adapting to what judges' findings are, and what their opinions are, and crafting something that can provide relief.

A quick follow-up on the breakup comments about Live Nation: Some people interpreted the original lawsuit as pointing toward a breakup. Are you saying that a breakup was never the department's objective?

I'm just suggesting in our system, cases are brought and then carried out by other administrations, and I think it's perfectly normal for the Biden administration to view a breakup as their goal, and for the Trump administration to view other remedies as its preferred goal, and that's just democracy, that's how things happen.

The Biden DOJ viewed Live Nation as a case worthy of a breakup, and one of the most ambitious monopolization cases in years, while your DOJ settled it. Talk to me a little bit about what that difference tells us about the gap between Biden's antitrust philosophy and Trump's. 

Again, this isn't ever meant to be a criticism or anything like that. I think the Biden people were in many ways focused on having case law develop and make changes to the law of antitrust, and they viewed these cases as good vehicles for that, and I think the view that we take in the Trump administration is just trying to get people relief.

There's different ways to look at it: They wanted the law to develop and we wanted the best forms of relief available in the fastest form.

If Biden's DOJ was about developing antitrust doctrine through litigation, and Trump's is to prioritize faster practical relief, does that mean that this DOJ is less interested in bringing precedent-setting monopolization cases if it believes it can secure relief through a settlement instead?

No, I wouldn't view it that way. I think the other facet that people forget about the Trump administration is that while it's very open to settling, it doesn't view settlement as the only option. I think there's a view that the prior administration viewed settlements negatively. I think they voiced that very publicly, and they preferred going to trial, right? They prefer trial as the only means to get the relief that they sought.

I think what you see in the Trump administration is a belief that you can have flexibility, that there are some cases where you have to go to trial to get the relief that you want, but there are a lot of other ways in which you get a settlement and the settlement gets you what you want, or very close to what you want, but you don't have to keep deploying the resources, you don't have to worry about the appellate risk, you get people relief right in that moment. But I have never been told during my time in the division that I can only settle cases.

I'll say that in antitrust, the four years of Biden had a heavy focus on litigating and going to trial, but that's been the aberration in the last 20, 30 years of antitrust enforcement, and it's not to belittle it in any way. Again, that's their policy choice in the Biden administration, they had a right to make it, and there were some good results. But I take issue with the idea that those four years were somehow the default of antitrust enforcement, when actually they were the exception.

What’s some of the strongest evidence that the Trump administration has been tougher on corporate power than its critics claim?

If you look at the criminal side that I presided over for over a year, you have the first wage-fixing conviction in the United States vs. Lopez case. Now that was a case brought by the Biden administration, but the Trump administration continued to trial and then advocated at sentencing for a lengthy prison sentence for somebody who committed a wage-fixing offense, so that's a great example, one of sending a white-collar executive to prison.

I think the criminal program in antitrust has increased the days of incarceration by over 1,200 percent compared to the previous fiscal year in fiscal year 2024 so I think through its actions — we indicted a private equity executive in a big case, and looking at Ohio Health, and looking at New York Presbyterian — there have been a lot of enforcement actions.

If the critics were right, you would just see wholesale dismissal of cases, right?

It's kind of funny to say that because of settlements, we're not being tough on companies and C-suite executives and corporate power when, if you went to trial, what you would get in remedies are the exact same types of behavioral and structural outcomes. I think the biggest difference is that it doesn't want to punish companies, it wants to fix behavior, and then let the private market and the free market work its magic.

On the big tech side, most of the marquee cases were inherited. Is there an example that you want to point to where the Trump administration put its own stamp on antitrust enforcement?

Well, I'll say on the big tech side, the Google cases came from the [first] Trump administration. I remember being a deputy in the associate's office when Bill Barr was the attorney general, and I remember how difficult it was to get staff and get people to work on the Google cases.

I had in my office the front page of a recommendation from the antitrust division to the attorney general that recommended not going forward in the Google search case, and so that was a case that the Trump administration brought, that was a case that the Trump administration believed in. It obviously lasted through the Biden administration, and we still have two Google cases.

How do you respond to concerns that the president's political allies have been able to shape the outcomes of cases, or that Trump himself sometimes intervenes, as we've seen reported recently with the Live Nation case.

Look, I can't speak to allies of the president intervening because I haven't experienced that, and I haven't experienced the president “intervening” in cases.

I think what you see in our cases is a really serious view on what types of relief we can get in whatever forms we could get, and I think the biggest sort of input we see from the president is wanting to speed things up.

The people investigating, and I used to be one of them, would like as much time as possible to work on cases, and I think what you see from President Trump is an executive who wants to push people and get them to the right result, and so I think to the extent we see any type of input, it's in picking up our pace, because we only have so much time and we have so many things we need to solve. That's the pressure I feel, not any preferred outcome, but just in terms of getting relief and finality, because there are so many problems at stake, and only so little time.

A court filing says that Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino spoke with President Trump before the settlement. Were you aware of that conversation, and did it have any impact? 

I’m aware of the filing but I can’t comment on active litigation.

Your predecessor, Gail Slater, departed amid disputes with DOJ leadership over some of the cases. Were supporters of aggressive antitrust enforcement wrong to view her departure as a bad sign?

I can't speak to what their views are. I can tell you that I'm indebted to Gail, that I think she built a great process, and I'm only here because of Gail, and because of her belief in me. I think she did a great job and she should be proud of her legacy in the antitrust division.

Whenever there are departures, people are very quick to read into personnel what it could possibly mean about enforcement, and what I told the division upon my departure is that the division is too talented and too dedicated to the mission for any one of our departures to have that big of an impact on the overall goal in the antitrust laws.

Talk to me about coming in and taking over. How difficult was it to come in and lead the office after her departure?

I mean, emotionally, obviously, you feel it because you are losing somebody who you have a great deal of affection for, but the good thing about the division is it's filled with professionals. It's filled with people who are ready to be led and take the ball and move forward, and so I didn't find the actual day-to-day difficult. I felt really great support from the staff, I felt great support from DOJ leadership.

Looking ahead, where do you think the next major antitrust battle in tech will be? AI, semiconductors, somewhere else?

I would take issue with that. I don't think the Trump administration views some priorities as necessarily being a battle. Obviously, there's a lot of focus on AI, but I think what you see is an interest in finding solutions that involve collaboration. [FTC Chair] Andrew Ferguson and I both put out together the request for information for the competitor collaboration guidelines. What we're focused on is trying to put out what the rules of the road are in increasingly dynamic markets.

I wouldn't necessarily pick a specific sector where the Trump administration will be active, but I would say where they are focused and have been since Gail started was agriculture, healthcare, housing. I think cost of living issues are very important to the Trump administration. Where you'll see more involvement — I'd use that word rather than battle — is in those issues.

With regard to AI, I think there's a recognition that it is good when there is collaboration amongst companies and the administration. It yields more results for the American people when there is that sort of dialogue and engagement, rather than having both sides pitted against each other and “battling.”\]

Sticking to AI, some thought that AI would disrupt Big Tech. Instead it’s made some of the biggest companies even more powerful. Is that a competition problem, and does that worry you?

No, I don't think it worries me. I think when you look at competition problems, you have to see how it's applied, right? It comes down to do you find unlawful coordination amongst competitors, do you find some ways in which they're rigging the playing field where other new entrants can come in, or where you know they’re having a direct effect on competition. Until those facts are borne out, I don't think it would be fair to say that there's a deep concern about AI's involvement in big tech companies, but I think it's a very fact-specific inquiry.

What I have tried to really vocalize is that we don't view ourselves as putting a particular sector on notice. What we try to do is see the facts as they come, and if you see some concerning conduct that prevents companies, other companies from growing, or punishes rivals for innovating, if you see AI being used to entrench market power, rather than big companies continuing to innovate, I think that'll cause concerns. But just the prevalence of AI being used by big tech alone shouldn't be a concern.

So if AI ends up reinforcing the dominance of the biggest tech companies, such as Google, that alone wouldn't concern you or the department?

Because all those terms have to mean something, right? So, what does “reinforce the dominance” mean? How is it applied on a daily basis?

I think the best ways to view the red flags are when you see really dynamic and innovative companies become so big that they're not interested or motivated or required to continue innovating, and they just use their power to knock down prospective entrants and smaller companies that are rivals. I think that that's a much bigger concern than just being big.

What's the biggest misconception people have about antitrust and how this division makes decisions?

I think the biggest misconception is that the men and women of the antitrust division are affected or influenced by what the public discourse is about who they should be going after or what outcomes they need to get or the criticisms that come to the division. I think what you see is people who put that aside and focus on getting the outcomes right, irrespective of what observers or commentators in the public think.