Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., has issued a stunning warning to Vice President Kamala Harris over the potential removal of Federal Trade Commission Chairperson Lina Khan from her role — and threatened to “brawl” over her replacement.
“Let me make this clear, since billionaires have been trying to play footsie with the ticket: Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl,” Ocasio-Cortez warned on X.
“And that is a promise. She proves this admin fights for working people. It would be terrible leadership to remove her.”
Take a look —
Let me make this clear, since billionaires have been trying to play footsie with the ticket:
Anyone goes near Lina Khan and there will be an out and out brawl. And that is a promise.
She proves this admin fights for working people. It would be terrible leadership to remove her. https://t.co/ba3nUY35Cg
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 9, 2024
The controversy erupted after billionaire Democrat Mark Cuban, a prominent Harris campaign surrogate and NBA owner, suggested that the Vice President should replace Khan if she wins on November 5.
“If it were me, I wouldn’t” keep Khan, Cuban said at a recent Kaiser Family Foundation lunch. “The bigger picture is, she’s hurting more than she’s helping.”
Cuban said it was important to protect Big Tech.
“By trying to break up the biggest tech companies, you risk our ability to be the best in artificial intelligence,” he claimed.
“This is about AI. It’s a zero sum race for global dominance,” Cuban later said on social media, doubling down on his claims. “If we lose, the consequences are far more than economic. We have multiple companies fighting to win this race. And that competition is moving everyone forward. Even with the insane amount of capital required.”
Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., joined Ocasio-Cortez in defending Khan.
Mark Cuban “is wrong,” Sanders posted on X. “Lina Khan is the best FTC Chair in modern history. By taking on corporate greed & illegal monopolies, Lina is doing an exceptional job preventing large corporations from ripping-off consumers & exploiting workers.”
The FTC responded to Cuban’s remarks through spokesperson Doug Farrar.
“Chair Khan believes that choosing competition over centralized corporate control of markets is the path to letting the best ideas win,” Farrar said in a statement.
Cuban is not alone in his criticism of Khan. LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman and Barry Diller, the chair and senior executive of IAC and Expedia Group, have both called for Khan’s ouster.
However, Khan has found support from other quarters of the tech industry — and even Republicans. At a recent “Little Tech for Harris” reception in San Francisco, co-hosted by Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, attendees applauded Khan and the administration’s antitrust efforts.
Throughout Khan’s tenure, she has gained a reputation for being tough on antitrust issues, causing complaints that she has hamstrung business deals.
Indeed, her endeavors against Big Tech and conglomerates in other sectors have even earned her occasional praise from conservatives.
“I guess I look at Lina Khan as one of the few people in the Biden administration that I think is doing a pretty good job,” Republican vice presidential hopeful Sen. JD Vance, R-O.H., said earlier this year.
Cuban, 66, has emerged as a prominent surrogate for Harris, 59, from the business world. He’s privately encouraged her to moderate her posture toward big corporations and praised her being less aggressive than President Joe Biden in wanting to raise taxes.
“This country is deeply divided, and because of that, this election is going to be very, very close — margin of error. And we know, because of our system of the Electoral College, that puts a few states in real focus,” Cuban said at a separate fundraiser in Seattle.