Post

“Senior administration officials argued in the Oval Office on Friday over whether … NIH should further cut its spending,” As stated, this is illegal (and unconstitutional) impoundment

“Vought and other administration officials floated an additional review of the agency’s grant-making… and discussed a potential executive order establishing a commission to review the NIH’s grants.” This sounds like the kind of agency reorganization that requires Congress to pass a law.

“Vought told Congress during a hearing in June that “when we find [a grant] that’s problematic that our policy officials would not have caught, we need to be able to turn it off,” he said.”’ That is as plain a statement of the unitary executive approach to running science agencies as I can imagine

Pushback on the proposed OMB rule worked, so Vought had to get creative on implementing the P2025 mandate. Trump’s really really mad at Harvard for not bending the knee, so he’s on board with Vought’s novel tactic to get control over academics across the country. Miller’s in it for the anti-woke.

What does Jay do, after getting his sitting bones handed to him at the WH? I believe he cares deeply about NIH, as wrong as he is on many issues. The noble and dramatic gesture would be stepping down: I’m not sure he has that in him. And I’m not sure that would be good for NIH, either. /