(2025-07-28) Legum How Axios Rebranded Conservative Ideology As Objectivity

Judd Legum: How Axios rebranded conservative ideology as objectivity. "President Donald Trump, in terms of raw accomplishments, crushed his first six months in historic ways," the pair wrote in a piece published last Wednesday. Allen and VandeHei listed Trump's "wins": "Massive tax cuts. Record-low border crossings. Surging tariff revenue. Stunning air strikes in Iran. Modest inflation."

In a May 2024 CNN interview, VandeHei said that the best way for reporters to restore trust is to keep their opinions to themselves and "stop popping off in ways that make people distrust the work that you do."

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.

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."

In response to a request for comment from VandeHei and Allen, Axios spokesman Jake Wilkins provided the following statement:
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.

Pretending that expressions of right-wing economic ideology are “clinical reporting” is quite lucrative. In 2018, one of Axios' launch partners was Koch Industries, the conglomerate run by right-wing billionaire David Koch, who spends hundreds of millions of dollars promoting Republican candidates and causes. While at Politico, Allen was accused of including paid ads in his newsletters for the Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest corporate lobby, without proper disclosure.

This approach has made Allen and VandeHei very rich. In 2022, they sold Axios to Cox Enterprises for $525 million. The deal was made as Cox Enterprises appeared to be exiting the media business. But the Cox family, which privately owns the company, has a "long history" of supporting conservative political causes.