One of the most significant casualties of the Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to federal funding is scientific research grants, a move that could leave the nation “stupid” and struggling to innovate, wrote Frank Bruni for The New York Times.
The issue has ignited fierce debate, with scientists from major institutions warning that the shutdown of critical research will even jeopardize public safety. Reports indicate that under Trump, the National Science Foundation is reviewing studies based on whether they contain terms like “woman,” “female,” “bias,” “systemic,” and “trauma”—words often linked to social justice movements but with essential meanings in scientific contexts.
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“The Trump administration is currently trying to stanch the flow of such money to organizations, including universities, that will nurture tomorrow’s most consequential discoveries,” Bruni wrote. “That makes zero sense in the context of Trump’s past experience in the presidency. It’s even less logical in the context of his promise to lift the United States to new peaks of glory and make us the envy of the world.
Among our most significant competitive advantages are our scientists, our laboratories, and our system of higher education. They’re a kind of superpower, their output an engine of our wealth — of frontier-expanding technology, medical breakthroughs, and production innovations that enrich companies as they improve lives.”
One striking example of the impact of research funding is Operation Warp Speed, which fast-tracked the development of COVID-19 vaccines in 2020. The program, a signature achievement of the Trump administration, would not have been possible without extensive scientific research grants. However, Bruni argues that this is only the beginning of Trump’s broader “war on knowledge.”
“On Tuesday his administration announced that it was firing more than 1,300 workers in the federal Department of Education, which had already been reduced by more than 600 workers since Trump took office. That will leave it with roughly half the number of employees it had just two months ago … how would its erasure improve the shameful reading and math scores of America’s schoolchildren? Administration officials don’t really say,” he wrote.
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Similarly, Trump’s administration is cutting funding to the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control, and private universities that he deems adversarial.
“Intellectualism, science, education — and respect and funding for all three — are what positioned Operation Warp Speed to operate at warp speed,” Bruni concluded. “They gave Trump something big to brag about. How can he of all egomaniacs sacrifice the boasts of the future?”
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