(2025-07-29) Bannon Is Axios Worthy

Brian Bannon: Is Axios worthy? When Axios co-founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei wrote a “Behind the Curtain” column last week marking President Donald Trump’s first six months, it was widely criticized on social media as shameless bootlicking and sucking up to power.

On Monday, progressive journalist Judd Legum brought more rigor to the critique, writing on his Popular Information Substack that Axios reframes conservative economic policy as neutral and themselves as clinically objective. 2025-07-28-LegumHowAxiosRebrandedConservativeIdeologyAsObjectivity

Legum points out that: 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.

Having written a lot about the Cox Dynasty, including parallels between its own and Axios’s origin stories, I wouldn’t call it uniformly conservative. While some heirs support Republicans like Brian Kemp, others support Democrats such as Senator Warnock and Stacey Abrams. Dissident heir Fergie Chambers is a self-described Communist.

But Legum is correct that its outlets, from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution to WSB radio push the center rightward, especially on economic issues.

Every media ownership model has its drawbacks, but Legum is right to call out Axios, whose co-founders are millionaires paid by billionaires, for claiming economic objectivity.