What Liberal Media? Axios Thinks Being Neutral Means Kissing Trump’s Ass

Failures

from the that's-not-journalism dept

The news org Axios launched in 2017, just as the first Trump administration began, created by some ex-Politico folks, claiming that they would be “an antidote to this madness” and talking about how “the world needed smarter, more efficient coverage” of important news stories.

The reality is that Axios launders rightwing talking points in ugly short form vignettes that not only hide nuance, but reveal how their version of “neutral, objective” coverage actually means normalizing Donald Trump’s madness.

Two recent examples show how this works in practice. Last week, we wrote about how Tulsi Gabbard was trying to mislead the public into believing President Obama had “faked” Russian attempts to influence the 2016 election.

We went into great detail about how she misrepresented documents she had declassified to imply things they did not say. From the documents, it was entirely clear that (as multiple bipartisan research efforts had determined) Russians had tried to influence the election via social media, but had not been able to hack election infrastructure to change votes. Gabbard conflated the two things, using reports of the failure to attack election infrastructure to pretend it meant that there was no intent to influence the election.

So how did Axios cover this story? By focusing on how MAGA folks played their role in buying into Gabbard’s false narrative, talking about how they were calling for Obama’s arrest for treason.

The entire framing of the article is all about people who are believing the misrepresentations Gabbard made, and it literally takes 25 paragraphs (I counted… twice) before they add in a “reality check” admitting that Gabbard is lying:

Meanwhile, Gabbard’s accusation of Obama-era “treason” hinges on a claim that no serious investigation ever made: that Russia hacked and altered vote tallies in 2016.

I fail to see how this is “smarter, more efficient” coverage when it uses Gabbard’s misleading and dangerous framing for the first 24 paragraphs of the article, before adding in the kinda important fact check down towards the end of the article.

Doing it this way reinforces the false MAGA narrative and framing, and leaves people with the impression that there must be some sort of legitimate reason for the accusations.

But the more damning example came the same day. Two of Axios’ founders, Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen, published a column claiming that Trump was “winning” in his accomplishments while seeming genuinely perplexed why his approval ratings were at historic lows.

The column opens in a hilariously disconnected-from-reality manner:

President Trump, in terms of raw accomplishments, crushed his first six months in historic ways. Massive tax cuts. Record-low border crossings. Surging tariff revenue. Stunning air strikes in Iran. Modest inflation.

Yet poll after poll suggests most Americans aren’t impressed. In fact, they seem tired of all the winning.

This isn’t just bad reporting—it’s active propaganda dressed up as analysis. Here’s how that same paragraph could easily be rewritten by someone whose brain hadn’t been pickled in a MAGA brainwash stew:

President Trump has failed to do basically anything to make American’s lives better, while focusing almost all of his attention on culture war nonsense that decidedly is making lives worse. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy paid for by slashing Medicaid, sending the military in to our cities to silence protestors, kidnapping students and farmworkers, increasing the cost of most goods through foreign import taxes, breaking his promise to avoid costly military entanglements in the Middle East, and generally destroying American good will throughout the globe.

Trump promised a ton of shit he hasn’t accomplished: lower prices on day one. An end to the war in Ukraine. An end to fighting in Israel/Gaza. Oh, and the release of the Epstein files.

This kind of analysis only makes sense if you’ve completely bought into Trump’s own framing of success, and believe that his culture war conspiracy theory claptrap were actual real issues.

The mass deportations his base celebrates for their performative cruelty frequently target asylum seekers who did, in fact, follow the law, not the “criminals” Fox News obsesses over. The fact that Trump shipped many of them to foreign gulags without any due process seems to have escaped VandeHei’s and Allen’s notice. The tariffs that supposedly brought money into US coffers did so by raising taxes on everyday items—because, contrary to Trump’s claims, American consumers pay those tariffs.

Yes, he cut taxes. But mainly for the extremely wealthy, while stripping Medicaid from those who need it most.

And that doesn’t even touch on how he destroyed things like funding for cancer research, has made public health in the US a joke leading to a revival of measles, how he is pardoning criminals, and much, much more.

This is the Axios formula: adopt Trump/MAGA framing wholesale, present it as “neutral” analysis, then act bewildered when Americans reject policies that a cowed Congress rubber-stamped. They’re grading on a curve with a rubric set by the MAGA faithful.

Judd Legum, over at Popular Information, calls out how Axios has “rebranded conservative ideology as objectivity” and it’s quite true. Legum documents how VandeHei and Allen repeatedly invoke “neutrality” and “objectivity” while pushing transparently MAGA-friendly analysis.

Indeed, VandeHei and Allen have political opinions and express them publicly. VandeHei simply redefines his right-wing ideology as patriotism. “The American miracle rests on untamed democracy, the animal spirits of capitalism, the magic of unrestrained innovation, and the soft power of a vigilant and vibrant free press,” VandeHei wrote in a December 2, 2024, Axios column. “I’m a believer in — and beneficiary of — all four.”

On January 20, 2025, the day Trump was inaugurated for the second time, VandeHei and Allen wrote, “Think of the U.S. government as a once-dominant, lean, high-flying company that grew too big, too bloated, too bureaucratic, too unimaginative.” The piece says Trump has a vision to remake government that “binds Trump with leading innovators.” The pair wrote that an “optimistic scenario” is that the second Trump presidency could “jar lawmakers and the public into realizing how a slow, bloated, bureaucratic government handcuffs and hurts America in the vital race for AI, new energy sources, space and overall growth.” They stated it is “correct” to believe “America’s government is so vast, so complex, so indebted that it makes fast, smart growth exponentially more complicated.”

VandeHei and Allen then outlined a plan for fixing the federal government’s problems — “cut workforce,” “cut costs,” “break stuff,” and “ignore the whiners.” While this is presented as a common-sense approach that a CEO would take, it essentially parrots the plans from the early days of the Trump administration.

Legum further notes that the “Trump is winning” article incredibly only quotes (anonymously, of course) from Trump insiders:

Notably, in the piece, Allen and VandeHei cite conversations with “Trump advisers,” “a longtime Trump aide,” and “Trump aides” concerning Trump’s record over the first six months. There is no mention of views expressed by Trump’s critics or even anyone not working for Trump.

The old “liberal mainstream media” narrative was always mostly bullshit—most mainstream outlets bent over backwards to seem “balanced,” even to the point of platforming the most disingenuous nonsense peddlers. But now we’re seeing the real thing: a media ecosystem where rightwing and MAGA-friendly outlets dominate the conversation.

Fox News dominates cable news by far. Tons of people get their news from blatantly pro-Trump right-wing podcasters. There are tons of openly pro-MAGA news organizations out there. And even the supposed “liberal” mainstream media seems to bend over backwards to normalize Trumpism and MAGA nonsense. The NY Times and the Washington Post go out of their way to de-crazify anything Trump does. ABC and CBS have both paid Trump bribes and promised to be more MAGA-friendly. Same with Facebook and Twitter on the social media side.

Into this landscape steps Axios, insisting it’s the grown-up in the room. When Legum pressed them on their obvious bias, they offered this laughable response:

Axios provides essential clinical reporting drawn from conversations with top leaders and experts. The analysis — never opinion — in these columns reflects that, and we stand by our journalism.

Call it what it is: stenography masquerading as journalism. Taking insider talking points and presenting them as “clinical reporting” isn’t analysis—it’s propaganda with better fonts.

Axios represents everything wrong with how media has responded to Trump: the pretense of objectivity while actively normalizing authoritarianism, the elevation of access over accuracy, and the complete abdication of journalism’s fundamental responsibility to challenge power rather than fluff its ego.

In the end, there’s nothing “neutral” about laundering fascist talking points through slick presentation and insider access. That’s not journalism—it’s complicity.

Filed Under: donald trump, jim vandehei, journalism, mike allen, neutrality, objectivity, political reporting, stenography, tulsi gabbard
Companies: axios