0:03

From the opinion pages of The Wall

0:05

Street Journal, this is Potomac. Watch.

0:09

For to govern around the

0:11

Santas sides a lot of

0:13

bands social media accounts for

0:15

young teens As the Justice

0:17

Department zoos Apple alleging it's

0:19

monopolizing smartphone markets. Plus.

0:21

A listener right to ask me whether

0:24

Trump could really do government business on

0:26

Truth Social if he's reelected. Walkabout.

0:28

Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street

0:31

Journal. We are joined today by

0:33

my colleagues columnists skim Strasse or

0:35

and a leash of Finley. The

0:37

law the Governor on the said

0:39

is just sign says this: a

0:42

social media platform shall prohibit a

0:44

minor. Who. Is younger than forty

0:46

years of age from entering into

0:48

a contract with a social media

0:51

platform to become an account holder.

0:53

There was a similar provision that

0:55

covers those ages fourteen or fifteen,

0:57

saying that they can only use

1:00

social media accounts with parental consent

1:02

and all accounts. That. Do

1:04

not meet those qualifications must be

1:06

permanently deleted. His will be policed

1:08

by the state. With. Violations

1:10

are treated as unfair and deceptive

1:12

trade practices with civil penalties of

1:15

up to fifty thousand dollars per

1:17

violation. Let's listen to a piece

1:19

of Gov Ah the Santas what

1:21

he said when he signed this

1:23

in the law. With. Things like

1:25

social media and all This year you

1:27

can have a a kid in the

1:30

house. Safe. Seemingly.

1:32

And then. You. Have Predators

1:34

I can get right in their far

1:36

into your own home. You could be

1:38

doing everything right, but they know how

1:40

to get and manipulate i these different

1:42

platforms and so it's created huge problems.

1:44

Kim, What do you make of this

1:47

is a matter of State line Florida,

1:49

the people deciding that that's how they

1:51

want to regulate social media within their

1:53

borders. The So I think that

1:55

tension here from a policy perspective

1:57

is trying to balance what is.

2:00

on the one side, everyone is now

2:02

recognized as a problem, which is social

2:04

media can be very

2:06

destructive for kids. We know

2:09

that it contributes to depression,

2:11

eating disorders, self-harm. It is

2:13

a forum for predators

2:16

and bullies, and parents have

2:18

been tearing their hair out because it's

2:20

an addiction among kids. And at

2:23

the same time, it's very, very

2:25

difficult often to police its use.

2:28

Some of these companies like iPhones and

2:30

Google have, Android have come up with

2:32

the ways that are supposed to give

2:34

parents more controls, parental

2:36

controls, but kids are

2:39

very clever, often more clever than

2:41

their parents. And trying to

2:43

stay on top of this can be difficult.

2:45

The other side of it is in fact

2:47

parental control, meaning that at the same

2:49

time, do you want the state making

2:51

these decisions about who can

2:54

have social media, who can't, what

2:56

the age limit is, for instance. And

2:58

notably, I would point out that Rhonda

3:01

Santas had vetoed an earlier version of

3:03

this bill that had banned anyone at

3:05

all under the age of 16 from

3:08

using social media. So now the

3:10

age limit has been dropped to

3:12

14 ages 14 and 15. You

3:14

can get these apps

3:17

and services, but only with

3:19

parental consent. So they're

3:21

trying to do a balancing act there. My

3:23

own guess is that if you asked most

3:26

parents, I think a lot of them would

3:28

actually probably agree with this, at least not

3:31

just in the state of Florida, but

3:33

in other states as well too, because

3:35

they recognize it's a problem when they

3:37

feel they're lacking tools. How this sits

3:39

though, in terms of kind of the

3:41

age and what role parents have in

3:43

making these decisions is probably more likely

3:45

what we're going to see get fought

3:47

out in other states around the country

3:49

now that we've kind of got a

3:51

couple of states making models for this.

3:53

That's kind of where I think I come

3:55

down as well, because I don't

3:57

know that I see a principled reason why... a

4:00

state shouldn't be able to do this. We have all

4:02

sorts of laws for health

4:04

and safety, including of minors. We have

4:06

bicycle helmet laws. We have laws dictating

4:08

how old you have to be to

4:11

get a part-time job. We have laws

4:13

against furnishing alcohol to minors,

4:16

and some states have exceptions.

4:19

So if you have a teen who wants to

4:21

try a sip of red wine at dinner, there's

4:23

a legal exception that makes parents

4:25

in the clear if they choose to

4:27

make that decision. And some

4:29

states do not have those exceptions. So doing

4:31

that would be technically illegal, I guess, in

4:33

those states. And Alicia, I don't

4:35

know that I have a principled objection to

4:37

this age sort of limit by the state

4:40

of Florida, but it will be interesting to

4:42

see how this plays out, as Kim says,

4:44

in the laboratories of democracy

4:46

as parents are grappling with this

4:48

grand experiment, the social experiment in

4:50

raising kids in the internet age

4:52

that we've been dealing with for

4:54

only a couple of decades now.

4:56

And states are making different decisions

4:58

on how they want to move

5:00

forward. So I think there's

5:03

a federalism, and you're alluding to

5:05

the principle of federalism and horizontal

5:07

federalism, and both vertical federalism.

5:10

And this could be a state's issue

5:12

with the states exercising their police powers

5:14

to protect public health and safety. And they

5:16

do this all the time. And you mentioned the

5:19

bicycle helmet laws. They

5:21

also regulate tobacco, they

5:23

regulate increasingly their deregulating

5:25

pot, but they regulate

5:27

all kinds of products and require

5:30

labels and such protect public health

5:32

and safety. So the question is,

5:34

how is this law any different?

5:36

And I think there's a strong argument that

5:38

it isn't any different. I think in

5:40

terms of the concern that some of

5:43

these tech companies would raise, not besides

5:45

the First Amendment one, which I don't

5:47

think really has strong merit, is that

5:49

you're going to create a patchwork of

5:52

laws or regulations around the country.

5:54

And it's not very easy for

5:56

these companies to essentially segment how

5:58

they run their platform. In

6:00

California verse me or first floor to

6:02

floor needs a little more clean cut

6:05

to the just simply bands the minors

6:07

from. using. The platforms

6:09

in requires the primal. Notation some

6:12

for young keys, but there

6:14

are a lot other states

6:16

that are contemplating different policies.

6:18

A New York is. Considering.

6:20

Legislation. That would ban

6:23

on. These platforms freezing algorithms

6:25

that are based on anything but

6:27

chronology so keen feeds would be

6:29

based on the timeline of what

6:32

their friends post. Rather than any

6:34

kind of algorithm that feeds. Them

6:36

certain things based on what they're

6:38

interested and anything. It's problematic if

6:40

you start seeing these kinds of

6:42

different laws popping up in different

6:44

states to the does make would

6:47

make it hard to operate a

6:49

company operate a platform. Reinforcement

6:51

Pieces portable. I I think is

6:53

going to be fascinating about this

6:55

Kim because I do wonder how

6:57

these social sites are going to

6:59

try to verify for example, these

7:01

parental consent component of this. No

7:03

doubt, there are lots of teens

7:06

in the state of Florida who

7:08

are fourteen and fifteen and would

7:10

be covered by this bill who

7:12

have accounts on Tic Toc or

7:14

Instagram or Facebook or others of

7:16

these sites. and now according to

7:18

this law, those accounts have to

7:20

be deleted. Unless the social

7:22

sites are able to somehow get

7:25

in touch with their parents, get

7:27

the parental consent from their parents

7:29

and it seems like an enormous

7:31

verification Talons an a big change

7:33

in the wavy. These sites have

7:35

operated in this anonymous sort of

7:38

internet landscape, and there is a

7:40

federal law that generally says that

7:42

they're not supposed to have people

7:44

on those sites who are under

7:46

the age of thirty. That's a

7:48

federal law, and so would you.

7:51

sign up for an account you're asked if

7:53

you're over the age of thirteen but if

7:55

you click the checkbox kim my understanding is

7:57

there's not a whole lot of verification that

7:59

has done back end of that. That

8:02

is one of the reasons I think parents

8:04

have been frustrated. And by the

8:06

way, that example you just gave of this federal

8:08

law, which is a 1998 federal privacy

8:11

law, in theory, no kid

8:13

under the age of 13 is supposed

8:16

to be able to access any of this given

8:18

that law. But the estimates out there,

8:20

by the way, and these numbers are

8:22

pretty dramatic. There's an estimate that

8:24

anywhere from 20 million teenagers aged

8:27

13 to 17 are on social media.

8:31

But they think that there's another 5 million

8:33

more that are under the age of 13. And

8:35

that just goes to show you how

8:37

poor this law has been at actually

8:40

keeping kids off of this. So

8:42

what the Florida law is

8:45

envisioning is a sort of

8:47

third party anonymous verification process.

8:50

Nobody yet knows how this is

8:52

going to work. It

8:54

could be a real technical headache. One

8:57

of the problems as well too with kids

8:59

and doing this kind of age verification is,

9:02

as we all know, most kids, especially those

9:04

under the age of 13, don't have

9:06

any form of legitimate ID. And

9:09

so I'm going to be really curious to see

9:11

how this rolls out. But I

9:13

think the other issue here too, and

9:16

the struggle, and again, this is a

9:18

technical question, is the definition of social

9:20

media and who actually falls

9:22

under these new rules in Florida.

9:25

The way Florida is doing it is it's

9:27

going to identify what counts as a social

9:29

media app, and therefore

9:31

subject to this law based

9:33

on certain features that are

9:35

present in the social media

9:38

program. So do they use

9:40

notification? Do they have

9:42

autoplay videos that are designed to

9:44

hook kids? One thing that

9:46

strikes me about that is maybe if you're

9:48

these social media apps, you just get rid

9:50

of those features that would

9:53

put you in that category. Now maybe there's

9:56

too much of a commercial interest in continuing

9:58

to do that. possible they

10:00

can't just stop for their own business models,

10:02

but do you change your model in such

10:05

a way that you can evade this law?

10:07

There has been a similar law,

10:09

it's been put on hold by

10:11

a judge, but in Arkansas, and

10:14

it banned all social media use

10:16

for minors, and that might be

10:18

why the judge has put a

10:20

hold because it was quite sweeping,

10:22

that one sought to target any

10:24

apps that generate more than 100

10:26

million, I believe is what it is, and

10:29

so in certain amounts of revenue. But

10:31

there was complaints about that as well too

10:34

because there are plenty of, also social media

10:36

apps, the problem is the social media app

10:38

and the way it works and the problems

10:40

you can have for kids, I mean there

10:42

are clearly ones that are smaller that can

10:45

do just as much damage. So this

10:47

is exposing the degree to which there

10:49

are huge challenges to trying to enforce

10:52

something like this. But nonetheless,

10:54

I still think it's interesting and worthwhile

10:56

because often when states do stuff like

10:59

this, they begin to make clear their

11:01

intention to put out laws. It

11:04

is a prod to industry to try

11:06

to figure out a better way to

11:08

make this work, and I find it

11:10

hard to believe that in a day

11:12

and age where we do have such

11:15

remarkable technological advances, that there

11:17

can't be some sort of simple,

11:19

straightforward way to give parents more

11:21

control over what their kids are

11:23

doing on their phones every day. Hang

11:26

tight, we'll be right back in a moment. What

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IBM. Let's create. Welcome

12:03

back. Alicia, we'll give you a last word on

12:05

this, but to keep with the theme, I agree

12:07

with Kim that I wonder if this is these

12:09

kinds of laws and Florida passing,

12:12

maybe the first one, other states

12:14

coming on board, will create

12:17

a more fundamental change in the

12:19

kind of internet culture that we

12:21

have right now. There's that famous

12:24

cartoon of a couple of dogs sitting

12:26

in a desk chair and the caption

12:28

is, on the internet, nobody knows you're

12:31

a dog. And yet the plea from

12:33

Florida and these parents, it sounds like,

12:35

is that there has to be some

12:37

way to verify who these users are.

12:40

And I don't know about the idea

12:42

of anonymous verification if people are really

12:44

going to be thrilled with the idea

12:47

of uploading photos of their driver's licenses,

12:49

for example, and sending it across the

12:51

internet to some sort of company who

12:54

is supposed to check whether they are

12:56

providing parental consent to the use of

12:58

an account. Maybe it would be

13:00

a model of something more like going

13:03

through your phone company. Your phone company

13:05

knows who you are generally, has your

13:07

information and your name, your real name

13:09

and your credit card information and so

13:11

forth. Alicia, I guess I

13:13

can't see quite totally around this corner,

13:16

but it's possible we would get to

13:18

a model where social

13:20

sites are operating more on that

13:22

kind of model, maybe with verifications

13:24

going through Verizon or AT&T or

13:26

something like that rather than this

13:28

sort of click the button and

13:30

we'll give you a new account

13:32

system that they've been using. Right. And

13:34

I think the one proposal that the

13:36

tech companies have actually proposed, these platforms

13:39

have proposed is to go through the app

13:41

stores. There's two app stores in the US,

13:44

essentially, there's the Google Play and there's the

13:46

Apple app store. And

13:48

when parents buy their kids phones,

13:51

they have to send the app

13:53

store and they get all this information.

13:55

So that's what easy way to kind

13:57

of verify the ages. And to your

13:59

point about. the driver's licenses. I don't

14:01

think Americans really want to be feeding

14:03

that information to TikTok and for it

14:05

to be sent back to China. Now,

14:08

just on another point, I think conservative

14:11

parents are actually, if you look at

14:13

the polling, are much more supportive of

14:15

this kind of legislation than liberal parents.

14:18

And they actually impose more restrictions

14:20

on their teens' social media use

14:23

than liberal parents do. And so

14:25

this is actually, I think, a

14:27

fundamental, broader cultural issue

14:29

and cultural problem. Because some parents, if

14:31

you actually look at the polls, don't see

14:34

this as social media as a problem. They

14:36

don't think that the government should be. About

14:38

half parents don't think that their teens are

14:40

spending excessive use on social

14:43

media, even though the average teen spends about

14:45

five hours a day. And

14:47

so I think there needs to be

14:50

a larger, just like there was back

14:52

in the 90s, that tobacco was harmful.

14:54

There needs to be a larger public

14:57

education, public campaign. And maybe by Florida,

14:59

by essentially stigmatizing the use, maybe

15:01

help contribute to solving this problem.

15:04

Speaking of the Apple App Store, however,

15:07

that features in a new lawsuit brought

15:09

last week by the US government, which

15:12

accuses Apple of monopolizing

15:15

smartphone markets in

15:17

the language of the Justice Department press

15:19

release. Let's listen to

15:21

Attorney General Merrick Garland explaining why

15:23

the DOJ is bringing this action.

15:26

Apple has maintained monopoly power in

15:28

the smartphone market, not

15:30

simply by staying ahead of the competition on

15:33

the merits, but by violating

15:35

federal antitrust law. Consumers

15:38

should not have to pay higher prices

15:40

because companies break the law. We

15:43

allege that Apple has employed

15:45

a strategy that relies on

15:47

exclusionary, anti-competitive conduct that hurts

15:50

both consumers and developers.

15:52

Alicia, let me throw this back to you, because I know

15:54

you have looked closely at this

15:56

lawsuit. Just for background, Apple is about

15:59

50. 5%

16:01

of the smartphone market in the United States.

16:03

So what is the government alleging here and

16:05

what do you make of its claims? It's

16:07

a very blunderbuss lawsuit. It makes

16:09

a number of claims and

16:12

they're not really targeted. One

16:14

claim of regards or relates to

16:16

its app store and the commission that

16:19

it charges developers or apps that

16:21

for purchases. Now this isn't applied

16:23

to any old app only if

16:25

you actually, for instance, buys a

16:28

WSJ subscription or buy a Netflix

16:30

subscription through its app store and

16:32

then Apple will charge me a

16:35

30% commission on that or sometimes

16:37

less if it's a smaller app

16:39

that has fewer downloads. And

16:42

it says basically that this is a

16:44

tax on users, notwithstanding

16:46

that there are ways for companies

16:48

and users to get around that,

16:51

that you can buy

16:53

subscription on your PC, for

16:55

instance. There are other arguments

16:58

there, for instance, that the Apple

17:00

suppressed mobile cloud streaming videos

17:02

are requiring each to be submitted

17:04

at the stand alone app

17:06

for approval. So basically the complaint

17:09

here is that Apple

17:11

isn't just approving all of

17:13

Activision blizzards or another company's

17:15

video game apps in bulk.

17:18

There's no real requirement that

17:20

it does so in antitrust law or

17:22

any other federal law. And

17:24

the complaint, at least I kind of laughed

17:26

out loud when I was reading this. It

17:29

seems to be that it's not making it easier

17:31

for Microsoft, Microsoft, by the

17:34

way, just a purchase Activision blizzard,

17:36

isn't making it easier to augmented

17:38

its own kind of monopoly, at

17:40

least according to the FTC, it

17:42

is a monopoly. So

17:44

the antitrust cops can't even

17:46

keep their monopolist straight. And

17:48

then you go through the

17:50

lawsuit and it's pretty clear

17:52

that it's trying to essentially

17:54

protect these bigger companies from

17:56

competition, like Visa, MasterCard, from the

17:58

big banks and the finance. companies

18:01

that don't want the fintech competition. Kim,

18:03

what's your read of this suit? I guess one thought

18:05

I have is that it seems like one of the

18:07

things that the critics of Apple

18:09

want is to break open its

18:12

closed system. And so you

18:14

hear complaints that Apple

18:17

should allow other app stores on the

18:19

phone and make it more open like

18:21

the Android system. But my thought there

18:23

is that part of what Apple sells

18:25

to consumers in the United

18:27

States is the idea that you are

18:29

in Apple's closed system. And one of

18:31

the things that comes along with that is

18:34

security, that everything you go in the

18:36

app store and put on your

18:38

phone has been vetted by Apple's

18:40

tech experts that it is not

18:42

spyware and so forth. Yeah,

18:45

security, quality, privacy.

18:48

Everybody understands that they have a choice right now

18:50

if they go out between the

18:52

Android open system and iPhone's

18:55

closed system. And many people

18:57

choose deliberately to go into

18:59

that iPhone universe. By the

19:01

way, I'm an example of that. I

19:04

do not want an Android phone for a

19:06

number of reasons. And this

19:08

is interesting because we've actually had a

19:11

similar complaint like this. Epic Games

19:13

a while ago made a complaint

19:15

saying that Apple should have to

19:18

allow other app stores and

19:20

payment options into its universe.

19:23

And there were two courts that

19:25

said no. And they made this

19:27

argument that people aren't locked into

19:29

Apple. They rather are there because

19:31

it satisfies them and it's

19:34

something that they want to have. And

19:37

a bunch of the things that came

19:39

out in that suit also pointed out

19:41

why this is a very, very poor

19:43

antitrust action by the Department of Justice.

19:46

One of the complaints, for instance,

19:49

is that it is somehow retarding

19:51

tech innovation because they

19:54

have this closed loop that you're not

19:56

getting the innovation that consumers deserve. And

19:58

that's just nonsense. Look at

20:00

what Apple has itself produced in

20:03

the past decade, whether it's AirPods

20:05

or it's Vision Pro headset, new

20:07

functions for its Apple watch, but

20:10

look at the innovations outside of

20:12

it in places, by the way,

20:14

too, that Apple isn't necessarily competing

20:16

very well at the moment. Artificial

20:19

intelligence is one. You

20:21

know, we've had new kind of

20:23

innovations and headsets, bone conduction headphones.

20:25

There's all kinds of stuff that's

20:28

moving ahead at leaps and bounds.

20:31

Apple's little universe, or big

20:33

universe, I should say, of

20:35

closed apps and app

20:38

stores is not standing in the way

20:40

of greater innovation, and nor is there

20:42

really a price argument, too, as Alicia

20:44

said. I mean, this is essentially, it's

20:46

like the Department of Visa lawsuit or

20:49

the Department of Google lawsuit. It's

20:51

simply a lawsuit that's working on

20:53

behalf of other giant players out

20:55

there in the industry. Hang tight. We'll

20:58

be right back after one more break.

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Watch podcast. From

21:44

the opinion pages of the Wall Street

21:46

Journal, this is Potomac Watch. Welcome

21:50

back. Let's close with a letter

21:52

from a listener. Russ in Connecticut

21:55

writes in on the discussion yesterday

21:57

about truth social. President Trump's social

21:59

media. site that has gone public. He

22:02

says we've commented that Trump

22:04

media may be very valuable if

22:06

Donald Trump is elected president and

22:08

uses true social as his communication

22:10

platform. However, would he be able to do

22:12

so if by using the platform

22:15

in any official or unofficial capacity, he

22:17

would be enhancing his own business interests?

22:20

Would that be the equivalent of intentionally

22:22

hosting government functions at Mar-a-Lago to benefit

22:24

himself and thus prohibited by law? I

22:26

have a couple of thoughts

22:28

and then I'll throw it to you, Kim, for a

22:31

last word. One is that we

22:33

almost have that kind of situation,

22:35

not at Mar-a-Lago but at the

22:37

Trump Doral in Florida. Remember

22:39

in 2019, the

22:41

administration was trying to figure out

22:43

where to host the G7 Summit

22:46

and amazingly it was

22:48

determined internally that the

22:50

Trump National Doral Resort in Miami would

22:53

be the perfect place for it. You

22:55

had the announcement come out, then you

22:57

had Mick Mulvaney came out and explained

22:59

that there were eight other places

23:01

that were looked at but the Trump property

23:03

just happened to be perfect. He

23:06

did say this, however, I don't talk about how

23:08

this place runs on the inside. If you want

23:10

to see our paper on how we did this,

23:12

the answer is absolutely not. And

23:14

Kim, what happened

23:16

was that they reversed that decision after

23:19

much public criticism and so I think

23:21

it would be a maybe a perception

23:23

issue for the president as that was

23:25

more than a legal issue but

23:28

it would be interesting because my recollection is

23:30

that when President Trump was on Twitter, he

23:32

would sometimes make announcements that

23:34

to me looked like official

23:36

government announcements on social

23:39

media and if he did that, he would

23:41

be putting, I think, his

23:43

social posts under the protection of

23:45

the First Amendment. There was this

23:47

case from the Supreme Court just

23:50

recently on this, local government

23:52

officials who were posting things on their

23:54

sites and what the Supreme

23:56

Court said was that if there that

24:00

are taking place on social media. They

24:03

are official government actions and those

24:05

local officials are not allowed to block

24:08

citizens' residence from those pages.

24:10

And so you could have

24:12

a situation it would be fascinating to watch

24:14

it play out in the courts where President

24:16

Trump is posting things on Truth Social that

24:18

look like official announcements and so in

24:21

some way they're covered by the First Amendment but

24:23

maybe we'll have to wait and get the court case in order

24:26

to to see what that looks like. And

24:28

it will come, believe me. I

24:30

mean it's a great question because

24:32

it reminds us of the many

24:34

thorny questions that would again be

24:37

rocketed to the forefront Donald Trump

24:39

wins the White House and you were

24:41

just talking about some of the legal ones

24:44

and you know it's a good place to start because

24:47

we started this talking about social

24:49

media and obviously there have

24:51

been and there's going to be more

24:53

court cases in which the Supreme Court

24:55

and others attempt to sort

24:57

through what exactly social media is.

24:59

Is it a public forum? Is

25:01

it are there certain rules therefore

25:03

attendant to it? The other though

25:05

is the financial question and I

25:08

mean let's not forget this was a huge

25:10

drama the entire four years Donald Trump was

25:12

in office in part because there were a

25:15

number of recommendations made to

25:17

him at the beginning of his term

25:19

as to how to handle all of

25:21

his assets and his empire in a

25:23

way that conformed with

25:25

the federal government's and sort

25:28

of ethics experts views of

25:30

what is the most ethical situation. He

25:32

ignored a lot of those too much

25:34

criticism and this is gonna

25:36

pose a new one but you know the

25:39

other thing that's interesting about this and an

25:41

argument that I would wager that the Trump

25:43

folks will make is that why

25:45

do we have truth social? It was

25:47

because even though Donald Trump was a

25:50

big user of Twitter and as you

25:52

note a lot of his official announcements

25:54

and information came out on social media

25:57

in the wake of January 6 all

25:59

these big companies band together and essentially

26:01

banned them and threw them off. And

26:04

that raised all kinds of situations

26:07

on its own about the power of

26:09

these firms. Are

26:11

these social media companies the public square?

26:14

Can you do that to elected officials?

26:17

They pointed out that there are private concerns. But

26:20

all of this kind of combined to a

26:22

number of shifts and changes in the social

26:24

media world and of course the creation of

26:26

true social. So are you

26:28

going to now suggest that this

26:30

one venue that Donald Trump knows for certain

26:33

he isn't going to be thrown off of

26:35

anytime soon? Are you going to foreclose that

26:37

to him, put him back at the potential

26:39

mercy of other media companies, social media companies

26:42

that may or may not like things he

26:44

has to say and may or may not

26:46

choose to throw him off

26:48

again? Some of them have relaxed those bans,

26:50

by the way. It's a

26:53

very, very thorny, complex question that

26:55

as I said, encompasses legal issues

26:57

and Donald Trump's own financial issues.

27:00

Thank you, Kim and Alicia. Thank you

27:02

all for listening. You can email us

27:04

at pwpodcast at wsj.com. If you like

27:07

the show, please hit that subscribe button and

27:09

we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of

27:12

the Potomac Watch.