Donald Trump signs executive order to “protect fans from exploitative ticket scalping”

Donald Trump continues signing a flood of executive orders, including one on Monday that he says will target ticket scalping. Kid Rock (dressed in a luridly flag-themed outfit) was alongside him as he signed the order, which, according to its fact sheet, will “protect fans from exploitative ticket scalping and bring commonsense reforms to America’s live entertainment ticketing industry.”

The order tells the Federal Trade Commission to work with the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, to make sure competition laws and the BOTS act are enforced, to ensure price transparency in the primary and secondary ticketing markets, and to prevent “unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market.” It also tells the Secretary of the Treasury, Scott Bessent, and Attorney General to make sure scalpers are complying with the tax code.

“It doesn’t matter your politics,” Kid Rock said. “I’m a capitalist and a deregulation guy, but they’ve tried this in some places in Europe, and it seems to be the only thing that allows us, as artists, to be able to get the tickets into the hands of the fans at the prices we set.”

Live Nation issued a statement in support of the order on Monday, which read, “We support any meaningful resale reforms — including more enforcement of the BOTS act, caps on resale prices, and more.”

In an email on Monday night, music critic Bob Lefsetz called the order “Much ado about nothing. Grandstanding. A joke.” He continued:

In reality the order says nothing. Other than ticket scalpers make a lot of money and they must pay taxes on their revenue.

Oh yeah, DOGE just gutted the IRS…who’s going to enforce that? Where are all the IRS engineers with time to dedicate to researching the receipts of brokers.

As for the BOTS act… It’s been on the books for years, but it’s been ineffective because there’s been no money/assets delegated for ENFORCEMENT!

And in a government where Musk is cutting willy-nilly, where is the extra manpower to focus on…TICKET SCALPING?

Read his letter in full here.