Trump Tracker Day 2 - Noise still dominates over signal, but less so

Totals for today’s 28 stories are 14 noise, 5 signal 1, 1 signal 3, and 8 normal. If you haven’t yet read how the Trump tracker works and what the true signals are, please read this article. The previous day’s tracker is here.

We’ve completely revised the graph. Above is the day 4 version. April 25 is day 2. Looking at the graph for April 25, it has 5 signal1s: Trump is destroying the American economy. The good news is it also has 1 signal 3: Trump is siding with Putin on the Russian/Ukraine war. The press is beginning to wake up and go deeper into what matters.

The signal stories were:

3. Full text of US peace proposal at odds with Ukrainian, EU positions, Reuters reports - Trump is siding with Russia, which is signal number 3.

7. Social Security may lose thousands more staff under new Trump rule - This damages the US economy by potentially reducing quality of management of the Social Security program. This is signal number 1.

13. Q&A: Donald Trump’s first 100 days - A variety of articles on Trump’s first 100 days examined Trump’s damaging actions on the US economy and in some cases democracy. This is signals number 1 and 2, but mostly 1.

15. US Consumer Sentiment Slides While Inflation Expectations Jump - Sliding consumer sentiment and higher inflation expectations both concern Trump’s actions, particularly tariffs, that are causing US economic damage. Signal 1.

16. US pharma tariffs would raise US drug costs by $51 billion annually, report finds - This is a clear case of how Trump’s tariffs would damage the US economy. Signal 1.

20. Canadians put off by Trump’s bluster and border arrests are booking far fewer US visits - Actions like these damage the US economy, as well as international relations. Signal 1.

This project is an interesting experiment. As far as we know, no one has ever measured the signal-to-noise ratio for the Trump administration. Our hypothesis is that the ratio of noise to signal is so high that Trump’s true intentions and motivations are extremely well hidden. The public and the press have simply not caught on to what really matters, the signal.

Here on day 2 we see the hypothesis still holds, but less so. However, there is already strong evidence it holds at a deeper level. NONE of the signal stories have yet been signal 4, that Trump has been a Russian controlled asset since 1987. The news covered this some in the past, but not lately. Trump’s cover has not yet been blown. We can expect some of Trumps’s future actions to attempt to prevent this, since the longer signals 1, 2, and 3 keep coming and become more clear, the more the public and the press will begin to suspect signal 4.

Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump's outrageous behavior. “The federal government reversed the termination of legal status for international students on Friday.” This is an example of on-again, off-again behavior designed to distract by confusion, since the behavior is so irrational.

374 articles - 94% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior. From the summary:

China is considering exempting some U.S. Products from 125% tariffs to alleviate pressure on its tech industry and has notified some companies about tariff reductions on semiconductors and aircraft parts, as reported by multiple agencies in Shenzhen.

US officials have indicated that their current tariff stance is economically untenable, and Trump has softened his approach, suggesting that tariffs will come down substantially, according to financial news reports.

This is the pattern of outrageous on-again, off-again bad behavior. The aggressor threatens or proceeds to do something bad, such as impose stiff tariffs. Then they threaten less or reduce the harmful behavior, in a unilateral manner. This leaves the opponent bewildered if previously they enjoyed a cooperative relationship, as is the case here.

The high tariffs damage the US economy, since they are the equivalent of a high sales tax. But that’s not the main story here. Instead, the story is all about negotiations, so much so that most readers will tend to forget the underlying truth: Trump’s flurry of high tariffs against a host of nations will damage the US economy.

133 articles - 75% high factuality - Ground News story.

SIGNAL3 - This is all about what we call signal number 3: “Trump is siding with Vladimir Putin on the Russian/Ukraine war.” The reason the US peace proposal runs against Ukrainian and EU positions is Trump is siding with Putin, so the proposal strongly favors Russia.

The Reuters article contains the full text of the proposal and that’s all. This disagrees with the Ground News headline above. That’s because since nearly all are AI generated, and AI is not yet highly error free in work like this. So let’s dig deeper. For that, we selected the article on “Trump’s contradiction: This is in the European peace plan for Ukraine.” This says:

While the US plan is aimed at a de facto recognition of Russian territorial gains, the Europeans and Ukraine strictly reject any recognition of Russian control over Ukrainian territory. … In addition, Ukraine is to finally abandon its plans to join NATO. In return, Washington proposes "robust security guarantees" for Ukraine by European and other friendly states – but without giving details. Financial compensation for Ukraine is also planned, but its origin remains unclear. In addition, the sanctions against Russia, which have been in place since 2014, are to be ended.

The US plan is essentially a complete capitulation to what Russia wants. Consider what we call signal number 4:

Trump is doing 1, 2, and 3 because he’s been a Russian controlled asset since 1987, as explained earlier in this article. As a sleeper agent who has risen to the top, his cover is to behave as an erratic, bumbling, corrupt, charismatic populist authoritarian who just happens to like Putin.

Given this perspective, it’s easy to see that the US plan was designed by Putin. That is the real story here, not the journalistic neutral tone of “US peace proposal at odds with Ukrainian, EU positions.”

48 articles - 88% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - As unusual as this event is, assassinations of famous people continue to occur in the US and worldwide.

360 articles - 91% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is disinformation operation. The so-called US sponsored peace plan negotiations are a disinformation operation directed by Putin and implemented by Trump. The purpose of the negotiations are to make it appear the US is being helpful in ending the war. But in fact, the various plans put forth by Trump all strongly favor Russia. All this is done in such an immature, bumbling manner (this Trump’s cover) that the press has been hoodwinked into mostly reporting on the many steps in the negotiations, such as the headline above. That’s noise.

204 articles - 76% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - This involves the normal sale of US arms to US allies.

63 articles - 83% high factuality - Ground News story.

SIGNAL1 - This damages the US economy by potentially reducing quality of management of the Social Security program. It can be seen as a first step to erosion of the program, which has caused considerable alarm on the left.

10 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - While school vouchers are controversial, changes like this to the US education system are a normal part of the system’s evolution.

50 articles - 54% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump's outrageous behavior. As this center article reports:

As part of his latest tariff announcement, which targeted nearly all foreign trading partners, Trump slapped a 31 percent import tax on Swiss goods coming into the U.S.

Days later, the president halted most of the country-specific tariffs for 90 days to leave wiggle room for negotiations, leaving in place a 10 percent baseline tariff on most imports.

This is the pattern of outrageous on-again, off-again bad behavior, and has already been explained in story 2.

30 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy. Trump has long painted immigrants as dangerous to the US. This article explains how false this is:

Trump cherry-picks examples of violent illegal immigrants to stir up his base, but the statistics tell a different story

President Donald Trump has repeatedly portrayed undocumented immigrants as dangerous, violent criminals who must be kept out of the US at all costs, but crime data tells a different story.

Multiple studies using federal and state data have found no suggestion that rising immigration rates leads to more violent crime. … Trump's rhetoric on this issue has completely ignored statistics that show native-born Americans commit crimes at a higher rate than undocumented immigrants.

56 articles - 96% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy, for the same reasons as in the above story.

55 articles - 98% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - Such negotiations have long been a normal part of US foreign policy.

250 articles - 94% high factuality - Ground News story.

SIGNAL1 - A variety of articles on Trump’s first 100 days examined Trump’s damaging actions on the US economy and in some cases democracy. It’s mostly the economy, so this story is classified as signal type 1.

Bill Maher and guests agree that Donald Trump’s first 100 days is the worst in U.S. Presidential history…. A Washington Post poll reveals that 54% of Americans disapprove of Trump's job performance, particularly regarding the economy and immigration. More Americans favor returning Abrego García to the U.S. than keeping him imprisoned in El Salvador, with 42% supporting his return, as indicated by the latest poll. Trump's approval rating is declining, particularly among young people, as critics express concerns over his economic policies.

20 articles - 83% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - The problem of antisemiticism at Harvard University began around 1925, as discussed in this Wikpedia section. The problem has largely been solved:

In January 2025, Harvard University settled two civil rights lawsuits accusing the university of allowing antisemitism on campus. As part of the settlement, Harvard agreed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, incorporate it into its nondiscrimination policies, and implement mandatory staff training to address antisemitism. The settlement also included commitments to provide resources for the study of antisemitism, establish a partnership with an Israeli university, and host an annual symposium on antisemitism.

1 article - 0% high factuality - Ground News story. - However, the 0% factuality applies to Real Clear Politics, which only posted a link to another source for the article. This was the Wall Street Journal, which Ground News rates as having very high factuality.

SIGNAL1 - Sliding consumer sentiment and higher inflation expectations both concern Trump’s actions, particularly tariffs, that are causing US economic damage.

45 articles - 93% high factuality - Ground News story.

SIGNAL1 - This is a clear case of how Trump’s tariffs would damage the US economy.

18 articles - 89% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is favoritism combined with false common enemy. Large for-profit corporations and their owners, the ultra rich, have long been anti-union. In the US the right, including the Republican party, has long been anti-union and has falsely painted unions and union members as enemies. “It’s not just the autoworkers who have been targeted by the GOP. Public-sector workers and their unions remain the recipients of particular GOP hostility” (source).

19 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior. The US has long been WHO’s largest donor, at 10% to 15% of its total budget, due to major benefits like access to global health information and participating in scientific advances and internatinal health emergencies. Yet Trump in his first term pulled the US out of WHO, falsely accusing it of “mishandling” the Covid-19 pandemic of 2020. Biden restored the relationship as soon as he took office in 2021. In his second term Trump has a new rationalization for pulling out of WHO: “unfairly onerous payments.”

Why is Trump doing this? Because it damages US global standing by making the US look like a rich nation that doesn’t want to carry its weight in its moral responsiblity to help the global common good. This is the purpose of countless global agencies and projects, like the UN, the World Bank, and WHO. And why would Trump want to damage US global standing? Because of signal number 3: Trump has been a controlled Russian asset since 1987. That’s the real story, but it is completely hidden by the noise of stories like this that describe only superficial events.

77 articles - 90% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior. This is the pattern of outrageous on-again, off-again bad behavior, as explained earlier in story 9 which dealt with Switzerland’s negoiations with Trump on tariffs.

143 articles - 80% high factuality - Ground News story.

SIGNAL1 - Actions like these damage the US economy, as well as international relations.

36 articles - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - This is a normal event in the cyber security aspect of defense.

1 article - 100% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy, as discussed for immigrants in story 10.

87 articles - 96% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy, as discussed for immigrants in story 10.

72 articles - 92% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - This is a normal newsworthy event related to politics, because it is the Gathering of Nations festival.

108 articles - 99% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is attack your enemies fallaciously, as may be seen in this extract from the single article behind this story:

New York’s progressive legislators have reportedly gotten behind what may be their most morally disgraceful bill yet: an assisted-suicide legalization push. Worse, per Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (D-Bronx), the bill has the votes to pass, which may happen as early as next week. This must. Not. Happen. Assisted suicide is sold to the public as a form of compassion — yet another inversion of reality. In practice, it is anything but.

Judging by their politics articles, the article’s website is a far-right Trump supporter. The enemy in the article is “progressive legislators”. Saying a bill is “morally disgraceful” is not a logical argument, but the appeal to emotion fallacy. Saying something is an “inversion of reality” without explanation commits the fallacy of an unsupported claim, better known as a lie.

All this is unfortunate. Media systems need a much higher level of logical discourse if democracy is to survive, as indeed Ground News is trying to provide.

1 article - Unknown factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is false common enemy, as discussed for immigrants in story 10. Here is the Ground News summary of the article:

President Donald Trump’s approval ratings on immigration, relatively strong in the early weeks of his second term, have dipped into negative territory, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a sign that his administration’s hard-line and, in some cases, legally dubious enforcement tactics are losing public support.

19 articles - 80% high factuality - Ground News story.

Normal - Agreements like this are normal.

39 articles - 96% high factuality - Ground News story.

Noise - The distraction pattern is Trump’s outrageous behavior. The NSF’s leader, Sethuraman Panchanathan, apparently resigned due to large NSF budget cuts. Science research budget cuts are totally illogical, as this left article explains:

Science is capital. By some measures, every dollar spent on research puts at least five dollars back into the economy, according to The New York Times. But Donald Trump doesn't seem to care. The Republican president has made science another of his targets in his already controversial agenda.

Panchanathan didn't say why he resigned, but the reason seems pretty clear: Last weekend, Trump cut more than 400 active NSF research awards, and he's pushing Congress to cut the agency's budget in half.

Again, why is Trump doing this? Because it damages the US economy and because of signal number 4: Trump has been a controlled Russian asset since 1987. That’s the real story, but it is hidden by the noise of many stories like this one: resignations from the Trump administration.

22 articles - 88% high factuality - Ground News story.