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Axios Omitted Details About Anti-Trump Economists

Axios omits crucial details about economists who say Trump will destroy the economy
One of the economists is married to a top Biden official and donated $25K to Biden Victory Fund

A letter signed by 16 top economists warning of the economic dangers of electing former President Trump, which is being amplified by the Biden campaign and other Biden surrogates, is littered with signatories who have either donated to Biden or supported him politically in the past.

"While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we all agree that Joe Biden's economic agenda is vastly superior to Donald Trump," the economists wrote in a letter first reported on by Axios this week that has been promoted by various members of the Biden campaign on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The letter’s Nobel Prize-winning signatories show political donations to President Biden's 2020 and 2024 campaigns. The signatories also donated tens of thousands of dollars to other Democrat candidates and signed previous letters supporting Biden's agenda, including attacking "selfish and reckless" Trump, a Fox News Digital review found.

Economist Joseph Stiglitz, the Columbia University professor who reportedly spearheaded the letter, previously signed a letter supporting Biden’s Build Back Better agenda and donated $1,250 to the Biden Victory Fund in 2020.

Between 2004 and 2020, Stiglitz donated over $90,000 to Democrat candidates, FEC records show.

Georgetown University Professor George A. Akerlof, who is married to Biden’s Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, donated $25,000 to the Biden Victory Fund and maxed out as a donor in 2020, giving the campaign $5,600.

Akerlof, who donated nearly $90,000 to Democrats between the 1990s and 2022, also signed a letter supporting Build Back Better, and signed a letter in 2020 calling Trump’s re-election effort "selfish and reckless."

Harvard University economist and historian Claudia Goldin donated $500 to the Biden campaign in 2020 and 2024 and has donated over $8,000 to Democrats in recent years. Goldin also signed a 2020 letter endorsing the Biden campaign.

Economist and mathematician Eric Maskin signed a 2020 letter expressing support for the Biden campaign’s agenda and donated $3,000 to Democrats in recent years, including Senate candidates Raphael Warnock, Beto O’Rourke and Jon Ossoff.

When reached for comment on his background supporting Biden and Democrats, Maskin said, "Although I am a registered Democrat and have donated money to Democratic candidates on occasion, I have also voted for many Republicans over the years (including Bill Weld and Charlie Baker for governor of Massachusetts)" in a statement to Fox News Digital.

He added that he considers himself to "be more a centrist than a strong partisan in either ideological direction" and pointed to an op-ed he recently wrote against political polarization in favor of a Republican senator and "supported the 2020 Biden agenda on its economic merits and signed the recent letter for the same reasons."

Where Did Biden's Surrogates Go?

Biden Surrogates Left CNN Spin Room ‘Abandoned’ While Trump Team Answered Questions

No surrogates for President Joe Biden appeared to be in the CNN spin room immediately following the presidential debate, prompting confusion from the press.

“Dozens” of reporters were left waiting with only people from former President Donald Trump’s camp, Daily Caller correspondent Henry Rodgers posted on X, citing MSNBC coverage.

While the Democrats’ team was seemingly absent, “endless Trump surrogates are on the spin room floor speaking to press,” Rodgers noted.
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“The spin room is full of Trump surrogates,” said Axios reporter Alex Thompson. “No one from Biden’s camp we can see.”

He added that “reporters keep asking each other if they have seen any of them.”
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“Biden surrogates have abandoned the spin room,” said conservative radio host Erick Erickson.
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When Biden’s surrogates — which included California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), and Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) — finally arrived, they were completely swarmed by the press.

Newsom on Biden's Performance

Newsom on Biden Performance: ‘We’ve All Had Those Nights’, Talking About Panic Over It ‘Unhelpful’ for Democracy

During MSNBC’s debate coverage on Thursday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) responded to President Joe Biden’s performance by stating that “We’ve all had those nights. All of us, not one person watching, hasn’t had those nights.” And “You don’t turn your back because of one performance.” Newsom also stated that the talk about the panic among Democrats over Biden’s performance is “unhelpful to our democracy, the fate and future of this country, and the world.”

After Newsom defended Biden on substance, host Alex Wagner asked, “I feel like, on the signature issue that Democrats have, which is abortion, the President’s response was garbled and undirected, at best. Do you feel like he did what he needed to do on an issue that could motivate voters at the polls?”

Newsom responded, “I think it’s significantly insignificant, because it’s de minimis, because the American people have made up their mind. They don’t support the policies of Donald Trump. They certainly don’t support his policies or his assertion somehow that the American people always wanted this to be states’ rights, which is laughable and absurd. So, from that perspective, I don’t think that will matter.”

He added that Democrats should “worry less and do more. We have the opportunity to turn the page, we have the opportunity to put our heads down, we have the opportunity to universally have the back of this President, who’s had our back. You don’t turn your back. You go home with the one that brought you to the dance, 100%, all in. And I was very, very proud that he was able to articulate the work that he has done and lay a foundation of understanding of the lies and the deceit that continue to come out of Donald Trump’s mouth.”

Wagner then asked, “You were out there getting a chorus of questions about whether Biden should step down. There is panic that has set in among people who have watched this debate, who are Democrats, people who are strategists, and some, even inside Democratic campaigns. Do you think it’s unfounded?”

After Wagner said there is panic, Newsom said, “There shouldn’t be.”

At the end of Wagner’s question, he stated, “I think it’s unhelpful. And I think it’s unnecessary. We’ve got to go in, we’ve got to keep our heads high, and as I say, we’ve got to have the back of this President. You don’t turn your back because of one performance. What kind of party does that? It’s been a masterclass, 15.6 million jobs, that’s eight times more than the last three Republican presidents combined. The only thing the last three Republican presidents have in common is recessions. Democrats delivered. This President has delivered. We need to deliver for him at this moment. With all due respect, the more time — we start having these conversations, go down these rabbit hole[s], [it’s] unhelpful to our democracy, the fate and future of this country, and the world.”

Newsom added that Biden gained “stamina” as the night went on.

Later, when asked if Biden should do the next debate, Newsom answered, “Absolutely. We’ve all had those nights. All of us, not one person watching, hasn’t had those nights. … You have good moments, you have bad moments.”

So do all Democrats agree on that?

CNN Commentator on Biden

Van Jones: ‘That Was Painful’ — Biden Should Let Dems Go Forward Without Him

CNN political commentator Van Jones said Thursday on CNN’s post-presidential Debate that President Joe Biden’s debate performance was so bad that he should let Democrats go on without him.

Jones said, “That was painful. I love Joe Biden. I worked for Joe Biden. He didn’t do well at all. He did not do well at all.”

He added, “I’ll give you the analysis. You kind of have the old man versus the con man. I can walk you through how it’s supposed to see it and say it, but I just want to speak for my heart I love that guy. As a good man he loves his country. He’s doing the best that he can. But he had a test to meet tonight to restore confidence of the country and of the base and he failed to do that. I think there’s a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now, we’re still far from our convention. And there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward, if he will allow us to do that but that was not what we needed from Joe Biden and his personally painful for a lot of people. It’s not just panic, its pain of what we saw tonight.”

CNN's Wallace on Biden

CNN’s Chris Wallace: Biden ‘Can’t Come Back’

CNN host Chris Wallace said Thursday on CNN’s post-presidential debate that President Joe Biden could not recover from his debate performance.

Host Erin Burnett said, “Chris, he goes through six days of preparation at Camp David, and they know the rules. He practices with the mics. He knows every one of these questions is coming. And yet he couldn’t fill the time. Now, I just want to, let’s see what the White House is saying: Sources close to the White House are saying he had a cold, wasn’t feeling well. I mean, as you would expect, that came out early on in the debate. But what accounts for someone with so much experience doing so much preparation and this being outcome?”

Wallace said, “Honestly, I think the question answers itself. He wasn’t capable of doing any better than he did.”

He continued, “He was incapable tonight. On the biggest of stages that he sought, he in effect, dictated. And with all of that preparation, he was incapable of doing better than he was. And you can’t come back from that.”

Wallace added, “You can’t be on a stage where tens of millions of Americans watched you and come up empty. And that’s what he did tonight.”

MSNBC Host on Biden

MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace: ‘Biden’s Circle’ Have Conversations About Him Dropping Out

MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace said Thursday following the presidential debate that President Joe Biden’s inner circle is discussing if he should be in the presidential race.

Wallace said, “I was on the phones for some of it after that became clear, and there is a conversation happening inside Biden’s circle, and certainly a much more frank conversation happening inside the Democratic coalition, and I think there will be stories of a lot of concern about the performance tonight.”

Host Rachel Maddow said, “When you say conversations are happening, what do you mean?”

Wallace said, “I think conversations range from whether he should be in this race tomorrow morning to what was wrong with him. He has a cold that came out, Kelly O’Donnell reported that a few minutes in.”

She added, “So those things, the reason why reporters were reporting on the cold is what you articulated. The voice was very, very soft. It wasn’t the Joe Biden performance at the State of the Union. It wasn’t seizing a moment to get on the offensive on immigration. It wasn’t Joe Biden on the offensive on January 6. It wasn’t Joe Biden on the offensive on abortion. His two shining issues.”

What's Trump's take on Biden's job as the current US president?

Trump Blames Biden for Ukraine War

Trump Blames Biden for Ukraine War: ‘If We Had a Real President’ Putin Would Never Have Invaded

Former U.S. President Donald Trump said during the 2024 presidential debate on Thursday that Russian President Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine if he had remained in office.

Among other factors, Trump said Putin was emboldened by President Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Biden countered by accusing Trump of being too willing to make a deal with the “war criminal” Putin to end the conflict.

“If we had a real president — a president that was respected by Putin — he would have never invaded Ukraine,” Trump said.

“A lot of people are dead right now, much more than people know. They talk about numbers. You can double those numbers, maybe triple those numbers,” Trump said of the casualties from the Ukraine war.

Trump said Biden did “nothing to stop it.”

“In fact, I think he encouraged Russia from going in,” Trump continued. “I’ll tell you what happened. He was so bad with Afghanistan, it was such a horrible embarrassment — the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country — that when Putin watched that, and he saw the incompetence — he should have fired those generals like I fired the one that you mentioned, so he’s got no love lost.”

This was a sarcastic aside to Biden for his earlier criticism about Trump having a tempestuous relationship with his defense secretary, Gen. Jim Mattis.

“No general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan,” Trump continued. “Where we left billions of dollars of equipment behind, we lost 13 beautiful soldiers, and 38 soldiers were obliterated. And by the way, we left people behind too. We left American citizens behind.”

“When Putin saw that, he said, ‘You know what? I think we’re going to go in,’” Trump said. “This was his dream. I talked to him about it, his dream. The difference is, he never would have invaded Ukraine, ever, just like Israel never would have been invaded in a million years by Hamas.”

“You know why? Because Iran was broke with me. I wouldn’t let anybody do business with them. They ran out of money. They were broke. They had no money for Hamas. They had no money for anything. They had no money for terror. That’s why you had no terror at all during my administration. This place, the whole world is blowing up under him,” Trump concluded.

It is difficult to argue that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was anything but a disaster, although Biden certainly tried. Trump was fundamentally correct about the American casualties. A suicide bomb attack on the Kabul airport on August 26, 2021, that was later claimed by the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan (known as ISIS-K) killed 13 U.S. service members, as Trump indicated. His comment about “38 soldiers obliterated” was probably a reference to the Taliban shooting down a U.S. Special Forces helicopter in August 2011, during the second term of the Obama administration, when Biden was vice president.

As Trump said, Biden left $7.2 billion in U.S. military equipment behind in Afghanistan for the Taliban to capture, a figure confirmed by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR).

Trump was also correct that Biden rescinded the sanctions Trump restored on Iran after he pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal. Biden’s enforcement of sanctions against Iran became very relaxed — dangerously so, according to critics like Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA).

EUROPE

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Le Pen on Macron

Le Pen Says Faction Would Block Macron Sending French Troops to Ukraine if Elected

Populist right leader Marine Le Pen says her party would use the commanding position it is predicted to soon enjoy in the French Parliament to block President Macron from deploying soldiers to the Ukraine War.

French President Emmanuel Macron has spoken openly and repeatedly about his interest in getting directly involved in the Ukraine War, by committing his own troops there. But France is two days from kicking off a week-long, two-round parliamentary election in which the anti-war populists (National Rally, RN) led by Marine Le Pen are polled to come first, and they say they wish to block any such intervention, triggering a mini-constitutional crisis.

While as President, Macron is the chief of the armed forces and has the prerogative to deploy soldiers at will, Le Pen asserts that his position confers no ability to grant funding. Looking to a post-election situation where RN dominated the French Parliament and her party colleague Jordan Bardella is French Prime Minister, Le Pen said they would seek to block deployment by withholding money.

Polling looks good for RN, with aggregate polls placing the party in the early-to-mid 30s. But France has a two-stage election system, which has punished the RN in the past, and these runoffs can be hard to predict.

Le Pen said, reports French conservative broadsheet Le Figaro: “Chief of the armed forces, for the President is an honorary title since it is the Prime Minister who holds the purse strings… Jordan [Bardella] has no intention of picking a fight with him, but he has set red lines. On Ukraine , the president will not be able to send troops… in matters of sending troops abroad, the Prime Minister has, through budgetary control, the means of opposing it.”.
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Le Pen said she didn’t wish to “call into question” the competencies of the President, but allies of Macron immediately leapt into action to oppose what they said was an attack on the French constitution itself. France TV Info cited the remarks of Mayor Francois Bayrou, a prominent Macron supporter, who said Le Pen was “deeply” undermining the constitution, rebutting her suggestion the position of head of the army was merely honorary.

He countered that the President is: “…the one who appoints civil and military posts in the State, the one who chairs the Defense Councils, the one of whom the Constitution says in full ‘he is the head of the armies’.”

Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed his expectation that, whatever the outcome of next week’s election, the French government will still support his nation. In very clear reference to claims that Le Pen’s party has had sympathy with Vladimir Putin in the past, Zelensky said: “We believe that the French will continue to support Ukraine whatever the political situation… We are convinced that the next government will be independent of the Russian aggressor and will remain committed to European values and a strong and united Europe, the very Europe that Ukraine defends against Russian tyranny.”

Italy on the American Debate

Italian Media React to Debate: ‘Biden Paves the Way for Trump’s Triumph’

Italian media outlets reacted to the first presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, with one major Italian newspaper’s headline reading, “Biden Paves the Way for Trump’s Triumph.”

“The hoarse voice and the gaffes: in the TV duel, Biden paves the way for Trump’s triumph,” a headline from the Italian newspaper la Repubblica read, adding, “Now it’s up to Jill to convince her husband to leave.”

The newspaper goes on to call the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden “a disaster for the Democratic Party,” adding that the “Democrats are in a panic.”

“It was the feared performance of the 81-year-old leader,” la Repubblica reported. “With a hoarse voice from a cold, stiff, uncertain, and at times stammering, Biden gave a fragile, uncertain, tense image of himself.”

Another report by the same newspaper stated Biden “has no chance of being re-elected.”

Meanwhile, another major Italian newspaper, Corriere della Sera, reported that the Democrats had turned on their televisions to watch the presidential debate “with trepidation,” and ended up turning off their TVs “in panic” by the end, as Biden had confirmed their “worst fears.”

The newspaper added that “faced with old Joe’s first hesitations,” Trump “said nothing,” likely because he “understood that Biden’s difficulties were so evident that they did not require underlining.”

Corriere della Sera also referred to Trump as “an expert commutator,” adding that the two CNN moderators were “intimidated” by the 45th president, and therefore, “did not want to contest” him.

A third major Italian newspaper reported that “Joe Biden’s failure in the first debate against a more confident Donald Trump could change the face of the presidential campaign in the United States.”

UK on Israel and ICC

UK Challenges International Court’s Netanyahu Arrest Warrant Push

The United Kingdom submitted a brief questioning to the International Criminal Court challenging its jurisdiction over Israel, potentially delaying moves to issue an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, news reports revealed on Thursday.

The chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced he was seeking arrest warrants against Israeli figures, including Netanyahu, in May accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The warrants have not yet been issued but the decision on whether doing so would be lawful or not may be delayed by the British government’s move, which was revealed on Thursday but made on June 10.

The United Kingdom submitted a brief as an entity not party to the case, offering information or expertise pertinent to the court’s future decisions. The British submission hinges on the fact Israel is not a member of the court and, while Palestinian leaders joined in 2015, the Oslo Accords signed by Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat in 1993 made clear Israel alone has legal jurisdiction over its soldiers.

The ICC awarded itself the competence to investigate war crimes in Palestinian and Israeli territory in 2021, but the British paper challenges this power.

The Times of Israel reported that the ICC originally tried to keep the UK’s challenge secret. Now that it is out in the open, other ICC members have until July 12 to submit their own briefs on the matter. A decision on issuing arrest warrants or not appears to be suspended until after this time, so the court’s pre-trial chamber can consider these questions.

The United Kingdom government has previously made abundantly clear the decision by the ICC’s chief prosecutor Karim Khan, who is a UK-born human rights lawyer, to pursue an arrest warrant is not welcome. As reported in May when the announcement was made, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called it “deeply unhelpful,” saying there was no moral equivalence between a diplomatic state – Israel – defending itself and “the terrorist group Hamas”.