Wish I could upvote this more than once. This is very trenchant insight. I wonder if future corporate mergers will be timed with appropriate presidential administrations and their appointees.

My argument for this merger going forward is primarily one of precedence. I strongly believe that most legal questions should be already settled - one should be able to look at established precedence to identify the most likely result, and if precedence is upended, then it needs to thoroughly establish a new legal paradigm that allows prediction of most future cases. Given the recent history of mega-mergers, it should be safe for executives to assume that similar mergers would be approved.

If the most relevant criteria for whether the FTC permits a merger is "the ideology of whoever is in charge" then we have major problems. (And yes, I know this can and does apply to the US Supreme Court...)