Politics

EXCLUSIVE: Pressed To List Second Term Initiatives, Trump Says He Could Support Modernizing Antitrust Laws

Christian Datoc Senior White House Correspondent
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President Donald Trump signaled his support for modernizing antitrust laws for internet-based companies, he told The Daily Caller during an exclusive Friday evening interview in the Oval Office.

The Caller sat down with the president for more than an hour and discussed a host of issues — including coronavirus, racial inequality, the 2020 election, and China. When asked about potential second term initiatives, Trump eventually brought up rolling back Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which provides online platforms liability protections for speech from their users.

President Donald Trump sits down for an Oval Office interview with Daily Caller's Christian Datoc, Vince Coglianese, and Geoff Ingersoll (White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

President Donald Trump sits down for an Oval Office interview with Daily Caller’s Christian Datoc, Vince Coglianese, and Geoff Ingersoll (White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

“It’s really unfair what’s going on with the conservative voice,” he explained. “You’d solve the entire problem of  the various, you know, monopolists, if you ever voided Section 230.”

Daily Caller in turn asked the president why specifically he wants to rollback Section 230, instead of modernizing “all of the antitrust laws for the internet?”

“You know, that could happen,” he continued. “That could happen.”

Trump conceded that “you’ve got a lot of forces against, with antitrust. People own stock in the companies, millions of people own stock in companies.”

“You’ve got a lot of forces,” he said of potential obstacles to rewriting antitrust law. “It sounds good, but you say, ‘let’s do it,’ and you get clobbered. It’s a little bit like getting out of wars. You’ve got a lot of the military-industrial complex, you get out of wars, and they don’t want to get out of wars.”

President Donald Trump sits down for an Oval Office interview with Daily Caller's Christian Datoc, Vince Coglianese, and Geoff Ingersoll (White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

President Donald Trump sits down for an Oval Office interview with Daily Caller’s Christian Datoc, Vince Coglianese, and Geoff Ingersoll (White House Photo by Tia Dufour)

Earlier in the interview, Trump expressed his displeasure at advertising boycotts organized by liberal activists and added he wants to “get involved” in making them illegal. (EXCLUSIVE: ‘A Much Dirtier Game’ — Trump Wants To ‘Get Involved’ In Making Advertiser Boycotts Illegal)

“That has to be illegal in some form,” the president said of the boycotts. “How can you possibly allow this to happen? This is really a takeover of the whole system.”