The War on Science

The Steady State | Tony Fainberg, May 14, 2025

The first 100+ days of the Trump regime have weakened both freedom in the US and also US leadership in the world. The more obvious assaults on our freedom include political kidnappings on our streets by plain clothed, masked thugs as well as the evisceration of federal agencies vital to our society. But these distract from other, equally important efforts to weaken our nation: the attempted destruction of a large fraction of the nation’s scientific and technical enterprise, one of the pillars of US strength in the world

In the arena of medical research and in virtually every other realm of basic and advanced scientific study, our government is bizarrely engaged in shredding the nation’s capabilities, apart from military research and some technical areas that are of interest to Trump’s leading financial donor, Elon Musk. This destruction is being accomplished both through enormous cuts in the science and technical programs of our federal government and by waging a battle against America’s higher education capacity, with the apparent intention of weakening our world-renowned university research system. This current war on ourselves is being undertaken by extremists in the government who are enraged that US universities are, using a new pejorative: “woke.” This term is now totally void of meaning, except to indicate that the object of scorn is “politically incorrect.” These extremists seem unconcerned about the US losing its leading role in the world. Rather, it looks like they are working hard to diminish us.

Let’s start by looking at what our “leadership” is doing to US scientific, technical, and economic capability, and thus to our global stature.

The National Science Foundation, which funds US innovative research in a broad range of technologies, has just had its projected 2026 budget and staff reduced by one-half. As a result, its Trump-appointed (!) Director has resigned. This venerable institution, created in 1950, and greatly expanded eight years later in the wake of Sputnik, has helped propel the US to first place on the planet in scientific and engineering research and education. If not rescued by Congress, it could be on the verge of collapse.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is facing massive cutbacks of 30 %, much of the reduction focused on weather forecasting and climate change, the latter being now politically incorrect, of course. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is looking at a 25% reduction – NIST’s work is especially important in providing standards that will be essential to guide new technologies as they are being developed and applied – an essential component of the economic progress that arises from innovation. And even NASA will experience a 24% cutback in its proposed 2026 budget – a cut of $19 billion, which will cripple or terminate a number of hugely important scientific missions in mid stride, including sample returns from Mars, which have been collected and need to be returned to Earth.

The public is a little more aware of the travails of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the leading funding organization for medical science research in the world, one that is universally respected and has been responsible for miraculous advances in medicine. It also is engaged in a large amount of inhouse clinical research.

Thousands of NIH employees have been suddenly and unceremoniously fired. Just within the 40 days between February 28 and April 8, 2025, $1.8 billion in grants have been terminated – an administrative action that is extremely rare – leaving some clinical trials unfinished and their patients in a state of uncertainty. Further, the proposed budget for 2026 reduces NIH funding by over 40%, from $48 billion to $27 billion. The Centers for Disease Control are assigned a budget reduction of 30%. However, such budgetary conservatism is not preventing one David A. Geier from being given a grant to prove one of Kennedy’s fantasy theories, that autism is uniquely due to environmental factors. Geier is a discredited anti-vax buddy of HHS Secretary Kennedy, who, like the Secretary, has no medical degree and has been fined in Maryland for practicing medicine without a license.

A second tactic of our government is its attacks on young foreign researchers who are working in the US.

Many, having settled at least temporarily in the U.S., feel uncertain of future funding for their research and indeed for themselves. Innocent non-citizen tourists as well as university researchers have been kidnapped off our streets and at our ports of entry by agents of our federal government. The upshot is obvious: non-citizen scientists working here are seriously considering leaving the US to pursue their careers in other lands. Even US citizen researchers are feeling uneasy in this time of unreliable government support for science. And many of those other lands, notably in Europe, have quickly sensed the great incentive being offered them by the U.S. government. France, for instance, is quite happy to host our brilliant scientists, rather than to have them continue to advance scientific and economic progress in the United States.

Egregiously, one young Harvard scientist, Ksenia Petrova, has been incarcerated in Louisiana for weeks, allegedly for not declaring at customs the frog embryos she was bringing from France for a research colleague. Dr. Petrova is being threatened by US authorities with a forced return to her native Russia for a violation that usually results in a fine. This government behavior is especially scandalous, since she left Russia due to threats of reprisal for opposing Russia’s war in Ukraine. Such wicked behavior by government agencies will dissuade foreign scientists and other highly productive workers from coming to work in the U.S., as they have for decades in the past.

A third front of the Trump war on science and technology centers on its clumsy efforts to take over major universities by threatening funding cutoffs. Starting with Columbia and Harvard, but likely progressing to other institutions as well, this big-government action is openly aimed at determining who will study and work at our universities and research institutions and at deciding what is to be studied and by whom. At first, this tyrannical effort at control is focused mostly on the social sciences, often disguised as attacks on so-called DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives. But the plan to continue into other areas of science is becoming evident, through threats to try to freeze research at some institutions to the tune of billions of dollars.

Many of these hostile acts, aimed at destroying US leadership in science and technology, are being fought in the courts. This battle may not have the higher profile of even more disgraceful Trump efforts to “flood the field” with organic fertilizer. They clearly think, “Who cares about mere scientific research issues when Americans are daily bombarded with stories of the firing of thousands of government workers, with fantastical nonsense about luxury hotels in Gaza, with attempts to kill 14^th Amendment birthright citizenship, and the embarrassing, despicable public behavior of our President and Vice-President towards a foreign hero, Volodymyr Zelensky?

But the results of Trump’s war on science are pervasive and threaten to be long-lasting. The outcome will be a huge weakening of US prestige and power on the planet. Our national security will be seriously damaged for years. Further, if these destructive efforts come into full effect, it may take decades to repair the disaster.

Tony Fainberg has spent a career in basic and applied research in physics, as applied to national security issues, such as counter terrorism and nuclear nonproliferation. He has served on congressional staff, in several agencies of the Executive Branch and with a government-sponsored research institution. Mr. Fainberg is a member of The Steady State, a coalition of more than 270 former national security, intelligence and diplomatic professionals.