On May 29, 2026, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made a proposal for the Federal Finance Assistance Rule to be overhauled.¹ OMB is proposing to rewrite the foundational regulations that govern how every federal grant dollar created by Congress is awarded, used, and terminated at every level of government, over $1.1 trillion a year. This would include not just federal grants in the sciences but all 42 federal agencies from the Agriculture Department to the Environmental Protection Agency to the Education Department and the National Endowment for the Humanities to the Housing and Urban Development Department and “everything in between”.² Every federal grant made anywhere in the country to any cities, states, local agencies, non-profits and more will be subject to review by a federal appointee to ensure the project meets Trump's goals. 

OMB’s plan would amend the Statutory and National Policy Requirements section to prohibit use of federal award funds to “fund, promote, encourage, subsidize, or facilitate” any DEI policies or gender research that “den[ies] the biological reality of sex or the sex binary”.³ This Rule would be so far-reaching that “a university or research institution that conducts such research, even with entirely separate, non-federal funds, could face grant termination for other projects if the activity is found to conflict with award conditions.” [Emphasis added.)⁴ 

This is extremely sinister. Not only do these prohibitions mean that any federal grant in any agency that in any way does not follow Trump’s prescribed agenda, from the erasure of the LGBTQ community to the denial of racial injustice, will be immediately terminated or not granted. It also means that an institution doing research in an area outside the scope of Trump’s agenda using only private donations can be denied federal grants. Time magazine aptly called this “forcing ideological alignment”.⁵

Many grant writers have been coerced to self-censor and to rewrite the text of their grants, both current and proposed, to comply and not to suddenly lose funding. This is all part of the larger step-by-step program to facilitate and consolidate fascism by eliminating funding for research it says does not support “Trump’s mission”—the Trump administration’s mission of transforming America into a white supremacist, male supremacist, xenophobic, science-denying, Christian, ultra-nationalist country. 

Former National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientific program official for 22 years, Dr. Elizabeth Ginexi, wrote, “What OMB is proposing is not a reform of grants management. It is a complete political control apparatus layered over every stage of the federal science funding lifecycle."⁶ The advocacy group Stand Up for Science called the proposal an “unprecedented power grab by [OMB director] Russell Vought”⁷, who is the key architect of Project 2025.

Jules Barbati-Dajches, an analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy, recently said that instead of applications being awarded on merit, political appointees loyal to the administration could decide who receives funding. “When reviewed in the larger context of how the Trump administration has attacked and politicized science, including developing a list of topics like climate science and clean energy, that agencies are prohibited from using, this is especially concerning.”⁸ Any attempt to find the truth through a rigorous scientific approach and methodology would be stripped away. No longer would there be a search for objective truth and an attitude of “follow the truth wherever it leads you”—a core principle for scientists.

Under the Proposal, one or more White House political appointees designated by their agency head must conduct a “pre-issuance review” of all discretionary grants, making sure they follow several standards, including to “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.”⁹ Every research grant awarded by the federal government would be vetted and decided by political appointees¹⁰, not experts or peers as peer review would be explicitly ignored. 

All these agencies would have to rework how they deliver grants worth tens of billions of dollars under this new proposed Rule. Many grants could be immediately terminated given their wording or stated purpose if they are “inconsistent with program goals or agency priorities” or determined to be “no longer in the Federal Government’s interest”.¹¹ Grants, including multiyear projects, can also be terminated without appeal or explanation at the whim of a political appointee. Rep. Zoe Lofgren noted that in scientific endeavor, “This newest dystopian move would destroy what remains of merit-based review dealing a crippling blow to science."¹² The Organization of American Historians raised the alarm in an even more sweeping way, “This shift undermines the professional standards in ethics, rooted in evidence-based analysis and interpretation, that sits at the center of historical research.”¹³

We have seen the gutting of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the anti-vaccine, anti-scientific lunacy by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, and the firing of Susan Monarez as CDC director because she said that “vaccines save lives”. This Proposal would be a tremendous escalation of the relentless attacks on medicine, science and health.

Trump’s administration has already terminated thousands of grants it deemed unworthy of scientific study even before the latest attack by the OMB.¹⁴ “It's super arbitrary and there’s not a lot of transparency,”¹⁵ noted Scott Delaney, an epidemiologist and lawyer at Harvard University. During the first 4 months of the Trump Administration, almost $3 billion in NIH and National Science Foundation (NSF) research grants were canceled. With this new OMB Proposal, Trump wants to create a mechanism to prevent and further curtail any research that does not align with his fascist agenda and continue to promote anti-thinking, unscientific sophistry appealing to his MAGA social base and disorienting the decent people.

This is having a particularly chilling effect in the sciences. Normally, a panel of scientists who have expertise in the particular field of science that a grant application is made are the professionals who make funding decisions and are required to justify their decision-making based on rigorous questioning and review, not by an arbitrary whim of a Christian fundamentalist, science-denier, or anti-Trans advocate.

Dr. Ginexi listed 19 ways that this change in Rule is “going to destroy American Science”. She points out that “the Rule repeatedly invokes a concept called ‘Gold Standard Science’ ... without defining it in any concrete or measurable way” (emphasis added),¹⁶ leaving it completely open for interpretation by any White House appointee while invoking Trump’s fascist agenda. Further, “applicants can be denied based on organizational 'affilliations'.”¹⁷ This means any person applying for a grant in any of the 42 agencies that a Trump appointee deems “anti-American” or “promotes anti-American values”¹⁸ for any reason—opposing the banning of books, supporting the Sierra Club, giving money to Doctors Without Borders—can be denied a grant. This denial or stripping away of grants has already started,¹⁹ but now will be expanded across all Agencies.

This proposed OMB Rule would additionally restrict science by greatly limiting access to any breakthroughs and discoveries. Publication costs and open access fees would be unallowable, making the findings of any research effectively suppressed. With extremely restricted prior approval, subscriptions to professional, academic, and technical journals would be made categorically unallowable, making it particularly difficult to conduct research without access to the scientific literature that is foundational to their work. Researchers would be greatly hindered, if not prevented, from communicating their findings to the public or press. Stripping away conference costs which would deny researchers of all fields, from education to humanities and health, to communicate and share ideas, a cornerstone to research. Having “… no place to publish science, no lasting repository of science. It is a cruelly calculated attempt to set us back 400 years.”²⁰

The Rule’s preamble characterizes climate science, public health research, and equity research as “divisive ideologies” so these topics cannot be discussed. Researchers would be barred from speaking publicly about their own federally funded results and breakthroughs that are deemed “politically sensitive subjects”.

Sir Mark Wolport, the prominent British scientist and former Government Chief Scientific Adviser, spoke about the social responsibility of researchers, the importance of empirical facts, and the role of innovation by saying “Science isn’t finished until it’s communicated. The communication to wider audiences is part of the job of being a scientist, and so how you communicate is absolutely vital.”²¹

Dr. Ginexi points out that “every new federal grant program, including science programs, must now be designed with goals that explicitly align with administration policies and priorities.”²² This OMB Rule would give the White House direct oversight and leverage over every Federal grant and which institutions receive federal research funding. This will have devastating effects on all educational institutions that do any type of research. This would also mean money could be taken from Meals on Wheels, Head Start, a local hospital or a housing project. All these programs were created through the Congressional Budget process. “OMB is attempting to do all of this through a single regulatory change, buried in 412 pages of technical language, with a 45 day window for the public to respond." Moreover, “[t]hey are doing this to get around Congress and cut off money to your community."²³ As Daniel Kowalski, from the Heritage Foundation, pointed out with undisguised support, “the whole idea here is to basically have one control tower”²⁴, the executive branch, removing Congress and the courts from any role in budgeting decisions.

Most people are not aware of this OMB Proposal let alone even aware of the potential dire consequences of this new Rule that will have ramifications throughout society. There may be legal challenges. Congress, as a whole, is doing nothing to impede the passage of this Proposal that will go into effect on October 1, 2026.

Some organizations and people in the science and health communities such as The American Society for Microbiology²⁵, Code Blue 4 Democracy, and Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Science²⁶, have put out a call to speak out against this Proposal. Thorp noted that U.S. science risks a “mortal blow”²⁷ if the Trump administration proceeds with these plans. Scientists, institutions, and others such as the American Council on Education,²⁸ American Association of University Presidents,²⁹ New England Journal of Medicine,³⁰ and the National Council of Nonprofits³¹ are writing public comments. So far, this opposition is small and mostly outside of the public eye.

This opposition is extremely important, but it is relying on the very norms and mechanisms that this fascist regime is destroying. As the New York Times notes, this Proposal “…is expected to become final after the government solicits public comment”³² because Trump’s fascist White House is not influenced by and does not care about anyone or anything that disagrees with their mission. They are pushing forward with this agenda knowing it will be near impossible to fight legally, the Supreme court has shown itself to be a fascist ally of Trump, or undo later anything they put in place with this new budget Proposal. 

This opposition needs to be placed in the political context that it is happening: The Trump fascist regime is in the White House. To stop this deeply unethical and illegitimate Proposal by OMB, the whole fascist Trump regime must be driven from power. This means that people who hate Trump and what he represents, before fascism can completely consolidate power where opposition and dissent are no longer allowed, must raise the demand “TRUMP MUST GO NOW! reaching into every corner of society, with people acting to assert it everywhere, can stop this fascism. A growing refusal…disrupting business as usual until the regime faces a profound crisis of legitimacy—one in which millions, acting nonviolently and in concert, become an undeniable force compelling the removal of the Trump fascist regime for the threat it poses to humanity’s future."³³

Metaphorically, U.S. democracy is in the midst of a septic infection that will not survive with letters to a doctor that does not believe in modern medicine. This doctor must be stripped of their medical license and ability to practice medicine, and the patient must be transferred to a facility that can administer IV antibiotics while rehydrating them before they go into septic shock and the process cannot be reversed.

In the Name of Humanity, We Refuse to Accept a Fascist America!

THE WHOLE FASCIST TRUMP REGIME MUST GO NOW!