MT EXCLUSIVE: TAKING AMERICA’S TEMPERATURE ON FTC-FACEBOOK SUIT — A majority of Americans, about 62 percent, said they support the FTC’s antitrust action against Facebook, according to new polling out today by anti-monopoly group American Economic Liberties Project and polling outfit Data for Progress. Support jumps to 69 percent among Republicans, according to last week’s survey of more than 1,200 likely U.S. voters. Some 22 percent said they oppose or strongly oppose the suit, with Democrats most likely to be against at 26 percent. “The polling shows us that most Americans recognize that Facebook’s anticompetitive practices are wrong and the support is quite wide-ranging,” Morgan Harper, an AELP senior advisor, told MT.

— How do people feel about Biden’s Big Tech connections? Half of those polled said they believe the Biden administration should avoid appointing people who have worked for the major tech companies to positions at the FTC or Justice Department’s antitrust division. Republicans were most likely to agree with that sentiment at 58 percent. By contrast, 44 percent of Democrats said they agreed with the statement that the incoming administration should appoint individuals who have worked at “successful companies like Facebook, Apple, and Amazon” to bring that experience to the federal government.

— Breaking up the ‘New Gilded Age’: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) decried growing concentration across the U.S. economy at an event Tuesday hosted by AELP. “We have got to begin… breaking up these incredibly large and powerful corporations,” said Sanders, who singled out Amazon and the Sprint-T-Mobile merger.