President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination of Andrew Ferguson to chair the Federal Trade Commission signals a break from the aggressive stance of the commission under President Joe Biden. However, it also tees up a fight within the new Republican administration over the role of the FTC, with self-fashioned populists and more overtly big business-friendly Republicans disagreeing over the commission’s purpose and whether it should even exist.
The FTC maintained an unusually high profile in the 2024 election, with Lina Khan, the chair under Biden, drawing praise from progressives and scorn from some of Vice President Kamala Harris’s more corporate-friendly allies and advisors.
