Don’t Think Media Bias Is Real?
James Rickards

Yesterday was “Super Tuesday,” when 15 states and one U.S. territory held presidential primaries.

As expected, Joe Biden won on the Democratic side. Also unexpectedly, Trump won the Republican primaries “bigly.”

Nikki Haley has finally seen the writing on the wall and dropped out of the race.

The only primary she won, and it tells you everything you need to know, was Washington, D.C. She’s an establishment candidate in the mold of Jeb Bush or Mitt Romney.

The bottom line is the die is cast. Trump will be the Republican nominee, unless Democrat “lawfare” somehow succeeds in derailing him or something unforeseen happens.

That outcome seems less likely after Monday’s 9-0 Supreme Court ruling that prevents states from keeping him off the ballot.

It’s been amazing to watch mainstream media outlets cover the Supreme Court ruling.

Again, it was a 9-0 decision. But the Court’s three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the majority went too far about the role of Congress in enforcing the 14th Amendment.

The liberals argued that the Court should have ruled against Colorado and left it at that, without getting into the role of Congress. They were joined, incidentally, by Amy Coney Barrett, who’s considered a conservative.

It wasn’t a dissent, but their comments may have future implications for the November election, which I’ll explore in a future article.

But the media has so heavily emphasized the Court’s three liberals’ remarks that the majority went too far, they practically ignore the fact that it was a 9-0 decision.

It’s like they’re trying to spin the unanimous ruling as a defeat for Trump! But that doesn’t surprise me. The media has long abandoned any pretense of objectivity.

Today’s journalism is all about advocacy, not facts. There’s certainly a place for advocacy; that’s what Op-Eds are for. But basic reporting should try to be as objective as possible.

The simple fact is most mainstream journalists want nothing more than ensuring that Trump doesn’t win the election.

Below, I show you how that extreme bias is misleading the public on important election topics. Read on.

Where Are the Fact-Checkers?

I recall sitting in the Occidental bar in Washington, D.C., just a block from the White House, in the winter of 2007 having drinks with a few friends who happened to be communications advisers to the Bush administration, either in the White House or the U.S. Treasury. Mike Allen walked by

He knew my friends, but it was the first time we had met.

He joined our group and broke the news that he had just resigned as chief White House correspondent for Time magazine and took a position with a new publication called Politico

Mike was their first hire; he joined immediately after John Harris and Jim VandeHei launched Politico in January 2007. Mike was their first big-name catch.

At the time, Politico was relatively balanced in its reporting. Like almost all news publishers, it leaned to the left but gave the Bush administration a fair shake and stuck to factual reporting during the 2007–2009 global financial crisis.

Then inevitably, they abandoned any pretense of balance and went to the hard left where they have remained ever since. Mike Allen left Politico in 2017 to co-found news rival Axios. Politico has remained comfortable in the radical progressive column.

That’s why the passage quoted below caught my eye. It’s from a Politico article last Sunday that recognized Trump will be the Republican nominee for president in 2024 and began considering Trump policies likely to be pursued.

Here’s the headline: EYES ON 2025 – “Beyond shock and awe: Inside Trump’s potential second-term agenda.” The article continues:

A wide range of our POLITICO colleagues have a thorough examination of how DONALD TRUMP’s return to the White House would blow the policy agenda from his first go-around out of the water.

The topics include: “Banning abortions in red and blue states … Neutering climate science … Expanding trade fights against rivals — and allies … Waging classroom culture wars … Trying to kill the electric car … Neutering the federal election hacking watchdog … Bombing Mexico? … Deploying U.S. troops against Americans … Abandoning NATO.”

Politico may be far left, which is fine, but they’re good at reading tea leaves on political winners and losers. That aside, the article was a case of intentional fearmongering by trying to scare voters and investors about potential Trump policies.

As a guard against hyperbolic and biased journalism, let’s take each of these subheadlines and subject them to a reality check. What does a Trump second term actually mean for investors?

Banning abortions in red and blue states. This claim is false. In the 2022 Dobbs decision, the Supreme Court did not ban abortion anywhere. The court said that abortion is not covered by the U.S. Constitution and therefore under the 10th Amendment, the matter is left to the states

Some states will ban abortion, some states will facilitate it and others will find a middle ground such as a ban after 15 weeks. Trump is content to leave it with the states. The last thing a presidential candidate wants to do is wade into the abortion debate when it’s no longer a federal issue. Democrats will bring it up whenever they can, but smart Republicans will not take the bait. Trump has much bigger national issues to talk about.

Neutering climate science. This is a red herring. The so-called “science” of the climate alarmists is fake science using rigged data and defective models. Real science shows that CO2 has no impact on global warming. Climate change is real and has been for millions of years, but it’s not caused by humans or by carbon emissions

The best scientific evidence shows that it’s caused by solar cycles, volcanoes, ocean currents and water vapor, all beyond human control. Trump might neuter the fake science, but he will encourage the real science and put the climate alarmists on the run.

Expanding trade fights against rivals — and allies. This one is probably true and that’s a good thing overall. The U.S. has been reducing tariffs and exporting U.S. jobs abroad for decades. Trump believes it’s time to raise tariffs, increase costs to foreign producers and bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. This was actually U.S. policy from 1787–1962 starting with Alexander Hamilton and continuing with Henry Clay’s American System. This is what Trump means by America First.

Waging classroom culture wars. Trump wants literacy, mathematics, critical thinking and accurate history in the classroom. The culture warriors want critical race theory, an aggressive transsexual agenda and children’s books with graphic sexual content. Trump’s not a culture warrior and is welcoming to gays, for example; he just wants a return to traditional academic standards. That will help American productivity as more students get a solid education and can build from there with science, tech, engineering and math skills (STEM). The public supports Trump’s approach by wide margins.

Trying to kill the electric car. Trump won’t have to do much in this regard because the electric car is killing itself. The electric vehicle (EV) was invented in 1837 and peaked in percentage usage around 1910. It was replaced by the far more efficient internal-combustion engine (ICE) as popularized by Henry Ford and the inexpensive Model T.

EVs today face the same problem they have always faced — batteries. The battery charges don’t last long (usually about 150 miles instead of the 290 miles claimed). Batteries are drawn down because that’s how the car is heated – ICE engines use available engine heat to warm the car interior with no added energy.

EV batteries lose their charge in cold weather and can’t take a charge when temperatures are in the 25°F range or lower. There are not enough charging stations and charging takes too long. EVs have no resale value because buyers have to buy new batteries at $25,000 each.

The batteries catch fire and explode. And they do not reduce emissions because the electricity to charge the EV comes from natural gas and coal-fired power plants. EVs are only efficient in the fantasies of reporters at Politico. They are failures in the real world. Trump knows this.

Neutering the federal election hacking watchdog. This federal election watchdog exists solely to censor information favorable to Trump and to promote disinformation that favors Democrats. If Trump neuters this agency, that will be healthy for democracy.

Bombing Mexico? Not yet. But if Mexico comes any more under the control of the cartels and if the cartels increase their criminal activities in the U.S., then some military intervention there may be needed. The U.S. invaded Mexico City and took about a third of Mexico’s territory in 1848. The U.S. invaded again in 1916–1917 in the state of Chihuahua in pursuit of Pancho Villa after he raided Columbus, New Mexico.

So a new invasion would not be the first time. In fact, Trump will close the border, resume work on the wall and begin deportations of illegal aliens from the U.S. That may be enough to forestall an actual attack in Mexican territory. Trump doesn’t want to do it, but but don’t rule it out.

Deploying U.S. troops against Americans. This won’t happen; it’s another Politicofantasy. But Trump may use U.S. troops to secure the border and he would use U.S. National Guard units in coordination with governors (if needed) in a peacekeeping capacity to end riots by left-wing radicals from Antifa and BLM.

Biden is the one who weaponized the CIA and FBI to conduct surveillance, raids and selective prosecutions against everyday Americans and others that Biden deems “enemies of the people.”

Abandoning NATO. Trump is unlikely to do this. He did not do this at all in his first term as president. But he will use threats of quitting NATO as leverage to get NATO members to pay their fair share of combined defense costs. Trump will almost certainly end the war in Ukraine through negotiations with Russia, which is against NATO policy but very much in the best interests of the United States.

So there you have it. Every one of Politico’s scare tactics is either false, hyperbolic or a good thing. The message for investors is to ignore left-wing sites like Politico but re-read this article and place your bets accordingly.

If Trump wins, climate alarm and EVs will be gone. Oil and natural gas are scheduled for a comeback. Education will improve. Jobs will enter the United States, but illegal aliens will be ejected.

Overall, a new Trump administration in 2025 would be good for U.S. productivity, growth and the stock market. But don’t place your bets too early — we still have to survive 2024 first.

James G. Rickards is the editor of Strategic Intelligence, the latest newsletter from Agora Financial. He is an American lawyer, economist, and investment banker with 35 years of experience working in capital markets on Wall Street. He was the principal negotiator of the rescue of Long-Term Capital Management L.P. (LTCM) by the U.S Federal Reserve in 1998. His clients include institutional investors and government directorates.

His work is regularly featured in the Financial Times, Evening Standard, New York Times, The Telegraph, and Washington Post, and he is frequently a guest on BBC, RTE Irish National Radio, CNN, NPR, CSPAN, CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox, and The Wall Street Journal. He has contributed as an advisor on capital markets to the U.S. intelligence community, and at the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the Pentagon.

Rickards is the author of The New Case for Gold (April 2016), and three New York Times best sellers, The Death of Money (2014), Currency Wars (2011), The Road to Ruin (2016) from Penguin Random House.

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