pressed on what portion of the tax cuts were fully paid for, to which he replied that it was hard to know, as he said. congress add that, quote, we will know in the year eight, nine, ten, what revenues brought in. it s way too early to tell. brady s comments contradict republican lawmakers. and the trump administration repeatedly made pushing the cut saying they would be fully paid for, that would in turn generate additional tax revenues for the federal government. according to the latest congressional budget office released friday, the deficit is up nearly 40% so far this fiscal year. and yesterday was a trying day for big tech as the department of justice s antitrust chief outlined how the agency could potentially take
exasperation to kelly, i ve been telling cone to get this lawsuit filed and nothing s happened. i ve mentioned it 50 times, and nothing s happened. i want to make sure it s filed. i want that deal blocked. joining me now, nbc news senior media editor claire atkinson. good to see you. claire, what do we know about that exchange, whether that happened, donald trump telling john kelly in front of gary cohn he wants this tone? folks confirm to me it s real. what is surprising about the whole situation is that trump s antitrust chief had spoken on canadian television before he was appointed to the top anti-trust job and said he didn t have any issues with at&t/time warner merger. once he took the job he had a lot of issues. in fact, the d.o.j. took them to court twice. it s taken 28 months for them to finally close their deal. think about the ramifications that the employees that work there, the shareholders spending
here we have antitrust chief, they decided to go out and try to didn t work on the merits and it shouldn t have and, you know, we will see what they decide to do next. they said th are considering next steps but this is one where they ought to let it go because it s right on policy and right on the merits. paul: dan, you and i have covered antitrust for many years, and always antitrust lawyers in justice department look for any case to try to stop to complex muscles to show they are still relevant even though they end up losing, is this going to now with this defeat unleash a lot of mergers in the media business, you know, there s a bidding war for the assets of fox now which which, of course, owns this network and some of those assets between disney and comcast, are we going to see all kinds of mergers? unquestionably we will see mergers. the amount of economic activity is going the take place in the media business is going to be extraordinary. in many ways, at the end of the
here we have antitrust chief, they decided to go out and try to didn t work on the merits and it shouldn t have and, you know, we will see what they decide to do next. they said they are considering next steps but this is one where they ought to let it go because it s right on policy and right on the merits. paul: dan, you and i have covered antitrust for many years, and always antitrust lawyers in justice department look for any case to try to stop to complex muscles to show they are still relevant even though they end up losing, is this going to now with this defeat unleash a lot of mergers in the media business, you know, there s a bidding war for the assets of fox now which which, of course, owns this network and some of those assets between disney and comcast, are we going to see all kinds of mergers? unquestionably we will see mergers. the amount of economic activity is going the take place in the media business is going to be
indirectly or even directly because these mergers do end up having an impact on people. they definitely do. they have an impact on people not only on how much they pay for their television but how they watch that tv and how they watch these things because we are all starting to go into streaming and starting to watch more on our phones. these companies are trying to keep up and adapt. as we have been thinking about with privacy stuff is they are starting to use data in different ways. that is a lot of what is behind these deals is they are trying to keep up with facebook and googles and how they use data to sell advertisements. this may not be effecting us directly but it is effecting how we pay for things and how these businesses make money and how this entire landscape is changing. with sprint and t mobile we are seeing antitrust chief likely in court and i plan to ask are you going after these two? this is a horizontal merger?