Monopolies have been rigging the system for decades. They cozy up to Washington, throw cash around, hire armies of lobbyists, and manipulate rules so that everyday Americans always lose.

Thankfully, President Trump isn’t playing by their rules. He’s standing up for Main Street, not corporate boardrooms.

We first saw this with Big Tech. Mark Zuckerberg thought he could cut a favorable deal to get Facebook off the hook, possibly even counting on Trump to back him. Instead, the Trump administration allowed the case to go to trial, and Zuckerberg found himself sweating it out on the witness stand. 

Google attempted a similar stunt, claiming national security would be at risk if it faced a breakup. Trump’s DOJ wasn’t buying it.

“You know what is dangerous?” Antitrust chief Gail Slater asked outside the courthouse. “The threat Google presents to our freedom of speech, to our freedom of thought, to free American digital markets.” That case has now reached the remedies stage, and for the first time since AT&T in the 1980s, we could see a Big Tech monopoly actually broken apart. That’s how monopolies should be treated.

Now Ticketmaster is running the same playbook. 

Controlling 80% of the market, the ticket marketplace is infamous for outrageous fees and predatory practices, such as charging junk fees and allowing scalping bots to buy up most of its inventory, leaving regular fans at the mercy of price gougers. Yet now the monopoly wants Trump to think it’s the solution, not the problem. 

Ticketmaster’s owner, Live Nation, added a MAGA-friendly face to its board and is now floating “reform” ideas, like capping resale prices. Such caps would bankrupt almost all of Ticketmaster’s rivals, leaving the company even more dominant while pretending to “fix” the market.

It’s a double scam: they make the mess, then turn around and sell the “solution” as regulation.

It’s like an arsonist showing up with a bucket of water after lighting the fire.

Fortunately, the Trump administration is not paying any attention to Ticketmaster’s desperate attempt to protect itself from the White House’s wrath. It is already continuing the antitrust suit against Ticketmaster, and a ticketing reform plan set to drop in September could put the company’s “business as usual” to an end.

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Big Tech and Ticketmaster aren’t alone.

In June, the Trump administration hit Mexican bank CIBanco with the toughest sanctions possible, accusing it of aiding the fentanyl trade. A few weeks later, CIBanco — never before a client of Washington lobbyists — hired the MAGA-connected Rubin, Turnbull & Associates. The sanctions haven’t moved, and Trump has stood firm.

Amazon has also tried its usual political maneuvering on the president. When Trump won the White House, executives hired Brian Ballard — Trump’s former lawyer and Florida finance director — to lobby on Amazon’s behalf. They even contributed over $50,000 to the president’s inauguration. Did it work? No. Trump didn’t blink, and Amazon lost its effort to dodge federal antitrust charges.

Hardworking Americans are tired of being taken advantage of. Insider games, where a board seat or a lobbyist equals immunity, have gone on for too long. Trump sees it, and he’s the one president actually saying “No” loud enough for all of us to hear.

Trump is different from most politicians. He doesn’t feel he owes these corporations anything, and he isn’t inclined to give them a free pass. His administration is pushing back against any monopoly that harms consumers or breaks the law.

The bottom line? Corporate America needs to clean up its act or face the consequences. Because the Trump administration isn’t standing up for special interests, it’s standing up for everyday Americans like you and me.

* * *

Haley Kennington (@LadyKennington) is an investigative journalist and conservative commentator. She served as the Research Director & Story Editor for The Daily Wire’s “2020:The Plot Against the President” and the Research/Archive Editor for “What Is a Woman?“

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

President Donald Trump moved to cut another $4.9 billion in foreign aid spending through an executive maneuver last used nearly 50 years ago. 

In a Thursday letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), which was posted on social media on Friday, Trump stated that he is clawing back funding from programs run by the State Department, the United States Agency for International Development, and International Assistance Programs. Much of the funding is related to programs pushing climate and gender activism. 

The cuts will be carried out through a pocket rescission—a process allowing the president to revoke previously approved spending just before the fiscal year ends, leaving Congress no time to reauthorize the funds under federal law. Any future funding would require separate congressional approval.

On a background call with The Daily Wire, a White House official said a pocket rescission was a tool that the Trump administration had “dusted off.”

“Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission,” the Office of Management and Budget posted on X on Friday. “[President Trump] will always put AMERICA FIRST!”

🚨 Last night, President Trump CANCELLED $4.9 billion in America Last foreign aid using a pocket rescission.@POTUS will always put AMERICA FIRST! pic.twitter.com/1DvXYGdy3B

— Office of Management and Budget (@WHOMB) August 29, 2025

Secretary of State Marco Rubio applauded the move from Trump. 

“Since assuming office, President Trump has been committed to rooting out fraud, waste, and abuse from the U.S. government, saving American workers billions of dollars,” Rubio said. “Now, for the first time in 50 years, the President is using his authority under the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a pocket rescission, cancelling $5 billion in foreign aid and international organization funding that violates the President’s America First priorities.”

Rubio said that some of the programs that were cancelled included $2.7 million for “inclusive democracy” in South Africa and $4 million for “global LGBTQI+ awareness” 

“None of these programs are in America’s interest, which is why the President is taking decisive action to put America and Americans first,” Rubio said. 

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A White House official added that the cuts also included hundreds of millions of dollars in climate projects, such as building a greenhouse gas calculator, promoting vegan food in Zambia, developing insect powder for children in Madagascar, and purchasing electric buses in Rwanda.

There is an ongoing legal battle over the use of “pocket recissions,” and some lawmakers have argued that the move is unconstitutional. 

“Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval,” Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) said, joining Senate Democrats who spoke out against the move. “Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”

A White House official said Friday afternoon that they believed it had “a very firm legal footing” to make the cuts, and that “we will be making that case.”