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FTC Chair Lina Khan Should Take Jim Cramer's 'Unhinged' Obsession as 'Badge of Honor'
A spokesperson for the American Economic Liberties Project called the CNBC host a "mouthpiece and cheerleader for monopolists across the economy."
May 14, 2024
The American Economic Liberties Project on Monday called outCNBC's Jim Cramer for at least dozens of "hostile" televised attacks on Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan and her "historic pro-working families record."
The left-leaning group has been compiling Cramer's "most egregious on-air outbursts" over Khan since early last year and its tracker now features more than 30 clips from "Mad Money" and "Squawk on the Street."
When President Joe Biden nominated Khan to lead the FTC in 2021, she was an associate professor of law at Columbia Law School who had previously worked for the Open Markets Institute, the office of former Commissioner Rohit Chopra, and the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law.
As the clips collected by the project show, Cramer has described Khan as an "empty suit," "stupid," and a "total hack." The ex-hedge fund manager has also compared the agency leader's views to those of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, and Don Quixote.
Cramer has called out specific FTC actions under Khan—repeatedly blasting a lawsuit against Amazon, a company founded by one of the richest persons on the planet—and broadly accused the "rogue" agency of "torturing all the companies that America likes."
When one of Cramer's colleagues pointed out last October that he has taken "every opportunity to just come back to Khan," he responded, "No, I've missed opportunities and I regret that."
The tracker page states that "if Cramer was accurately reporting what the FTC is doing, he would see that Chair Khan is pursuing a pro-business, pro-innovation, and pro-worker agenda. And he is capable of it: he did, for example, proclaim the FTC's case against Kroger-Albertsons to be strong."
Noting Cramer's praise for Jonathan Kanter, an assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice whom the host has called a "heavyweight" and "rigorous thinker," the page adds that "he is so blinded by his obsession of Chair Khan that he sometimes even rails against her for suits brought by the DOJ and forgets to give the Antitrust Division credit for its work."
American Economic Liberties Project spokesperson Jimmy Wyderko said in a statement Monday that "Jim Cramer's anger over the FTC's enforcement record has turned into a full-blown obsession, launching nearly weekly barbs at Chair Khan with the zeal of a carnival barker defending his turf."
"This has manifested on national cable news through a series of unhinged, incoherent, and often inaccurate rants from Jim Cramer attacking the FTC for standing up to big corporations and delivering kitchen table wins to working families," he continued.
"Given Jim Cramer's role as mouthpiece and cheerleader for monopolists across the economy, Chair Khan should consider his harassment a badge of honor," Wyderko added. "We hope to see Jim Cramer get over his fixation syndrome, which is evidently even starting to frustrate his colleagues, as soon as he is able."
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CNBC Anchor Accuses UAW Leader of 'Class Warfare' for Fighting for Workers
"Record profits mean record contracts," said United Auto Workers Shawn Fain. "They've been competitive on our backs and it's time they pay up."
Aug 04, 2023
Labor advocates said Thursday that United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain is clearly "doing something right" after CNBC anchor Jim Cramer unleashed a diatribe targeting the labor leader over his ambitious demands for a new contract and his stark assessment of the "corporate greed" that's left union members struggling to make ends meet.
Cramer has spoken multiple times on CNBC in recent days about the ongoing negotiations between the UAW and the Big Three automakers—Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis—and has called Fain "frightening" for advocating for a wage increase to reflect the record profits the companies have reported in recent years.
Fain has been "talking about capitalism and the nature of capitalism and how it's really hurt workers," said Cramer, who compared him to influential former UAW leader and civil rights activist Walter Reuther—"as if it's a bad thing," noted one journalist.
Fain, who was elected to lead the union earlier this year, announced members' demands earlier this week in a speech broadcast on Facebook Live, highlighting the need for a significant pay raise to make up for years of concessions by the union following the Great Recession, the rising cost of living and inflation, and to match pay increases enjoyed by the CEOs of the Big Three.
"Big Three CEOS saw their pay spike 40% on average over the last four years," said Fain. "We know our members are worth the same and more."
Ahead of a September 14 deadline, after which the UAW could go on strike, the union is demanding an immediate 20% pay raise followed by an additional 5% raise in each year of the four-year contract.
According to the union, most new workers start out making $16 per hour, but if cost-of-living increases had been maintained since the Great Recession, the starting wage would be $28.68—about $21,000 more per year.
The union is also calling for a return of the defined benefit pension, which would give retired workers a set amount of money each month; the right to strike if a company threatens to close a plant; more paid time off; restored cost-of-living allowance increases; and other provisions.
Fain also spoke about the potential to shift to a 32-hour workweek to allow workers to spend more time with their families.
"Our members are working 60, 70, even 80 hours a week just to make ends meet—that's not a living," Fain said. "We have to work longer and harder to maintain the same standard of living... That means missing Little League games and family reunions."
"That's barely surviving, and it needs to stop," he said.
Cramer took issue with Fain's suggestion that Big Three shareholders and CEOs have been "overly rewarded" and scoffed at the notion that shareholders are "fat cats."
"That's class warfare and it's very shocking to hear class warfare," said Cramer.
In his address earlier this week, Fain said the automakers can "easily" afford to substantially increase workers' wages. The companies have made a quarter of a trillion dollars in North American profits over the past 10 years, and reported a combined $21 billion in profits in the first half of this year.
"Record profits mean record contracts," said Fain. "They've been competitive on our backs and it's time they pay up."
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