Critics are alarmed by the news that the Trump administration reportedly fired all 22 current members of the National Science Board, the body that steers the National Science Foundation and advises Congress and the president on top scientific issues.
In a statement on Saturday, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California called the decision a “real bozo the clown move.”
“This is the latest stupid move made by a president who continues to harm science and American innovation,” she said. “The NSB is apolitical. It advises the president on the future of NSF. It unfortunately is no surprise a president who has attacked NSF from day one would seek to destroy the board that helps guide the Foundation.”
“Will the president fill the NSB with MAGA loyalists who won’t stand up to him as he hands over our leadership in science to our adversaries?” she added.
“This unseemly political maneuver must be seen for what it is: An attempt to silence independent scientists, shut down evidence-based decision making, and keep the public in the dark,” Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concern Scientists, wrote in a blog post.
The National Science Foundation directed questions to the White House, which did not immediately respond to a request from The Independent for comment.
The White House reportedly fired the members of the board on Friday with little explanation.
The advisory body, whose members serve six-year terms, helps guide the overall direction of the NSF’s more than $9 billion budget. It helps approve major expenses and sets long-term priorities for the agency, the engine of basic non-medical science and engineering funding in the U.S., which has had a hand in the creation of major technologies like GPS and the internet.
“What it means is that there won’t be any practical impediments to the administration essentially enacting their own budget and priorities and ignoring Congress’ directives or congressional law,” Keivan Stassun, a professor of physics and astronomy at Vanderbilt University who was among those fired, told The Lost Angeles Times.
“What we’re likely to see is a collapse of what has historically been a broad investment in American science and technology capabilities,” he added. “The most transformative discoveries are transformative because you can’t predict them in advance, so we invest foundationally in scientists and engineers to do basic science and engineering research.”
The reported firings are the latest sign of uncertainty and upheaval at the NSF.
Last April, NSF director Sethuraman Panchanathan resigned from the agency, as personnel from the Trump administration’s slash-and-burn DOGE cost-cutting program were working inside NSF to cancel scores of grants.
The following month, board member Alondra Nelson resigned, citing the DOGE takeover, alleging the Elon Musk-led effort had “by fiat the authority to give thumbs up or down to grant applications which had been systematically vetted by layers of subject matter experts.”
Last year, the White House proposed a 55 percent cut to the NSF budget, which Congress rejected. The administration has again requested cuts as part of the fiscal year 2027 budget.
In March, the administration nominated Jim O’Neill, a former deputy secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and biotech investor, to lead the science agency.
O’Neill, who has yet to go for a hearing before Congress, would be the first NSF chief who lacked a formal scientific or engineering background.
In its first year in office, the Trump administration terminated or froze more than 7,800 research grants, while roughly 25,000 scientists and staffers at research-related agencies left the government, according to Nature.
Last summer, the administration removed all the members of an influential CDC vaccine advisory board, some of whom were replaced by vaccine skeptics.
The administration similarly removed members of an autism advisory board, installing members in their place who had previously made debunked claims linking vaccines to autism.
The president has a long history of denying well-established science, and he called the climate crisis “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world” last year at the United Nations General Assembly.
The president has proved supportive of the technology industry, though, championing artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency.
His administration has pushed to speed the development of AI data centers across the U.S.
Members of the tech industry donated millions to the president’s campaign, inauguration and White House ballroom project.
