According to Gizmodo, former FTC chair Lina Khan appeared on “The Adam Friedland Show” and maintained her anti-monopoly ideology despite constant comedic interruptions and dick jokes. She revealed that three of the four major asthma inhaler manufacturers dropped prices from hundreds of dollars to just $35 after the FTC called out pharmaceutical patent tricks. Khan named healthcare as the industry that “fucks people the most” and stated plainly that “there are people who have died because they can’t afford their medicines in this country.” She dismissed any political ambitions, saying Senate runs were out and the Presidency was impossible since she wasn’t born in the US. Throughout the interview, available on YouTube, she kept returning to her core message about concentrated economic and political power.
The unshakable regulator
Here’s the thing about Lina Khan – she might be the most disciplined person in Washington. While most politicians would either get flustered or try to match the comedy vibe, Khan just laughed politely and immediately steered back to her talking points. When Friedland asked if she was popular in high school, she deadpanned “No, I was a newspaper editor.” That’s basically the perfect encapsulation of her public persona: serious, focused, and unwilling to play games even in the most unconventional settings.
What’s fascinating is how she used the comedy podcast format to deliver some of her most blunt assessments yet. Calling out healthcare as the industry with the “most blood on their hands” isn’t something you typically hear from former government officials. She wasn’t just reciting policy positions – she was making moral judgments about which corporations are actually harming Americans. And people are apparently listening – the interview’s been getting significant attention, similar to other political appearances on the show according to the New York Times.
The serious message behind the laughs
Khan dropped some genuinely concerning insights between the comedy bits. Her comparison between economic consolidation and the rise of Nazism was particularly striking. She pointed to historical studies showing that “growing consolidation across the German economy had basically facilitated the rise of Nazism” and connected it to modern concerns about concentrated power. Now, that’s heavy stuff for a comedy podcast, but she delivered it with the same calm demeanor as when discussing her lack of Amazon Prime.
She also drew clear lines between her enforcement approach and the Trump administration’s. “If you were breaking the law, but you were in a C-Suite, the government would go light on you,” she observed, making it clear she sees this as a fundamental corruption problem. The contrast she painted between even-handed enforcement and what she called “using the law to advance political grievances” suggests she views the current administration as fundamentally compromised when it comes to corporate accountability.
So what’s next for Khan?
Despite her clear political messaging, Khan seems genuinely uninterested in elected office. When Friedland pitched her on running for Senate or even becoming “Queen of England,” she dismissed the ideas outright. But here’s the interesting part: she still thinks we need “a New Deal-style level of ambition” to address corruption. So she wants massive government action, just not from an elected position.
What does that tell us? Probably that she sees herself as more effective outside the political system, maybe in advocacy or returning to academia. She clearly believes in government’s power to regulate corporate abuse – she pointed to the inhaler price drops as concrete proof that enforcement works. But she seems to think the current political system is too compromised to deliver the scale of change needed.
Basically, Khan used a comedy podcast to deliver one of her most unfiltered critiques of American capitalism yet. And the fact that she could do it while handling dick jokes and absurd hypotheticals suggests she’s got the media skills to stay relevant regardless of what office she holds. Or doesn’t hold.
