I’m not a huge fan of corporate mergers, but there was a pretty clear exit ramp that would have averted Spirit going out of business, and it was the Spirit / JetBlue merger. Democrats led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who seemed to be running half the Biden administration, took credit for killing the deal, claiming that the “merger would have led to fewer flights and higher fares.”
On social media, Warren is arguing that the Iran war is to blame for Spirit shutting down. Except that Spirit faced bankruptcy long before the war. It came out of Chapter 11 at the end of last year.
Now, Warren suddenly doesn’t want the credit for killing the merger after previously calling it a “Biden win for flyers.” Now she’s arguing that “FWIW, JetBlue merger failed because a judge, appointed by Ronald Reagan, said the deal was illegal.”
The judge in question, District Judge William Young, is a Trump-hating nutjob. The case was brought by a Justice Department stacked with leftists. Warren now wants to walk away from a case she promoted.
And there’s plenty of behind the scenes agendas. Remember that the Jet Blue and Spirit merger was the alternative to a hellscape merger between Frontier and Spirit. There were shareholders and financial interests involved on both sides. Did any of those influence the opposition to the merger?
Could be.
Either way, Sen. Warren wanted the credit for killing the merger. Now she doesn’t want it anymore.
