ASSAULT ON SCIENCEWe Are Witnessing the Suicide of a Superpower | Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain | The White House Gutted Science Funding. Now It Wants to ‘Correct’ Research., and more

Published 4 June 2025

·  We Are Witnessing the Suicide of a Superpower

·  The White House Gutted Science Funding. Now It Wants to ‘Correct’ Research.

·  Trump 2.0: an Assault on Science Anywhere Is an Assault on Science Everywhere

·  ‘We Are Witnessing a Full-Scale Assault on Science in the U.S’. That Will Be RFK, Jr.’s Legacy

·  From the Front Lines at Harvard: Battling Trump’s Attack on Science

·  Mark Z. Jacobson Responds to EPA War on Science

·  JD Vance Wanted to ‘Aggressively Attack’ American Universities. His Wish Has Been Trump’s Command.

·  U.S. Scientists Warn That Trump’s Cuts Will Set Off a Brain Drain

We Are Witnessing the Suicide of a Superpower  (Max Boot, Washington Post)
The president’s assault on science dangerously undermines America’s superpower status.
The 250th birthday of the U.S. Army and, not so coincidentally, the 79th birthday of President Donald Trump — a gaudy display of U.S. military power will parade through Washington. No doubt Trump thinks that all of the tanks and soldiers on display will make America, and its president, look tough and strong.
But the planned spectacle is laughably hollow. Even as the president wants to showcase U.S. military power, he is doing grave and possibly irreparable damage to the real sources of U.S. strength, including its long-term investment in scientific research. Trump is declaring war on science, and the casualty will be the U.S. economy.
Since the 1940s, when the University of Chicago, Columbia University and the University of California played a central role in the Manhattan Project, the engine driving U.S. economic and military competitiveness has been federal support of research universities. That partnership has produced most of the key inventions of the information age, including the internet, GPS, smartphones and artificial intelligence.
While China is investing to win the economic (and potentially military) contests of the future, Trump is undercutting long-term U.S. military and economic competitiveness with his anti-intellectual animus. The weapons systems that will be paraded in Washington on June 14 won’t be of much help to the United States in the future if it falls behind in the R&D race with China. I fear we may be seeing, as suggested by China expert Rush Doshi, the suicide of a superpower.

The White House Gutted Science Funding. Now It Wants to ‘Correct’ Research.  (Somini Sengupta, New York Times)
Thousands of scientists, academics, physicians and researchers have responded to the administration’s executive order about “restoring a gold standard for science.”

Trump 2.0: an Assault on Science Anywhere Is an Assault on Science Everywhere  (Editorial, Nature)
US President Donald Trump is taking a wrecking ball to science and to international institutions. The global research community must take a stand against these attacks.