Foreign Affairs: America’s Coming Brain Drain
Trump’s War on Universities Could Kill U.S. Innovation
n June 2024, at a national science and technology conference, Chinese President Xi Jinping said that the high-tech sector had become “the frontline and main battlefield of international competition, profoundly reshaping the global order and the pattern of development.” He is, of course, absolutely right. The United States and China compete for economic, military, and diplomatic dominance through the development of new technologies, including those with both military and civilian applications.
China is an increasingly formidable rival on this front.
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Today, the Trump administration is allowing scientific discovery and technological innovation to become collateral damage amid a culture war on universities. Vice President JD Vance has explained the political impetus for upending U.S. universities very clearly in a February 2024 interview with The European Conservative: “We should be really aggressively reforming them in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.” But is the perceived liberal bent of universities a reason to sow chaos in a research system that is key to U.S. national competitiveness? If a researcher can find a way to prevent cancer or Alzheimer’s, it should not matter whether they are conservative or liberal.
In just a few months in office, the Trump administration has already managed to inflict a remarkable amount of damage on the country’s research enterprise—damage that will have lasting effects. This includes hollowing out research agency staffs and freezing the process by which grants are awarded. The administration has also canceled already-awarded grants deemed to be in violation of executive orders, such as those related to gender identity or diversity, equity, and inclusion, or at disfavored institutions such as Columbia University. Most sweeping are the structural changes in the funding system for university research.
(Foreign Affairs more…)
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NBC: Trump administration halts research to help babies with heart defects
James Antaki has worked for over 30 years on a device to help infants with holes in their hearts and other defects. Now it’s all at risk.
(NBC more…)Scientific American: NASA Spent Billions to Bring Rocks Back from Mars. Trump Wants to Leave Them There
After billions of dollars in spending and decades of planning, NASA may be forced to abandon precious samples of air, rock and soil on the Martian surface. Experts are furious
(Scientific American more…)
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FreePress: How Qatar Bought America
The tiny Gulf nation has spent almost $100 billion to establish its influence in Congress, universities, newsrooms, think tanks, and corporations. What does it want in return?
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But Qatar is also a seat of the Muslim Brotherhood, a crucial source of financing to Hamas, a diplomatic and energy partner of Iran, a refuge for the Taliban’s exiled political leadership, financier and cheerleader of Palestinian terrorism, and the chief propagandist of Islamism through its media powerhouse, Al Jazeera, which reaches 430 million people in more than 150 countries.
(FreePress more…)Jennifer Rubin: Too much grift…even for MAGA Republicans?
It took a Qatari ‘gift’ for Trump’s GOP to suggest that accepting anything gilded in gold doesn’t look (or smell) great for a president who has placed a cap on pencils
(Jennifer Rubin more…)Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – May 13, 2025
While President Donald Trump’s billionaire sidekick Elon Musk has said he is pulling back from his work with the “Department of Government Efficiency,” he is with Trump today in Saudi Arabia, along with representatives from leaders from some of the biggest companies in the United States. The business executives are looking for Saudi investments.
Jason Karaian of the New York Times notes that the Saudis are looking to diversify their oil-dependent economy and are now the world’s largest investors in artificial intelligence, or AI. In addition to Musk, the AI entrepreneurs in today’s entourage include, as Karaian reports, “Sam Altman, the chief executive of ChatGPT parent OpenAI; Jensen Huang, the leader of the advanced chipmaker Nvidia; Ruth Porat, the chief investment officer of Alphabet, Google’s parent company; and Andy Jassy, the chief of Amazon, which is a major provider of cloud-computing services.” Cyber experts note that DOGE’s mining of Americans’ personal data under Musk has given him access to a treasure trove of verified information for his own company xAI. Karaian notes that xAI is in the process of raising money that could bring the value of the firm to $120 billion.
(Heather Cox Richardson more…)Snopes: Yes, Trump called Qatar ‘funders of terrorism’ in 2017
In May 2025, the nation of Qatar gave the Department of Defense a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to be remodeled into a new Air Force One.
WSJ: Trump Bets on Syria’s Former Jihadist
The President will remove all U.S. sanctions against the new Damascus regime.
USA Today: How Syria’s leader rose from al-Qaeda militant to a meeting with President Trump
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NY Times: Hawaii’s Prized Kona Coffee Fields Have Become a Target for ICE
The Trump crackdown has reached the volcanic Island of Hawaii, where immigrants, some of them undocumented, are crucial to cultivating the rare coffee.
(NY Times more…)
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CNN: Good news! Prices are falling. But it might be for bad reasons
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But not all price drops are created equal. Some of the good inflation news might be happening for a bad reason: a weakening economy.In Tuesday’s report, some price drops hint at softer demand from consumers facing an onslaught of policy changes out of Washington, a confusing trade war and turbulence in financial markets.
(CNN more…)
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CNN: Judge orders release of Georgetown scholar Badar Khan Suri after ICE detention in Texas
(CNN more…)
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Fox: Trump’s remarks could come back to bite him in Abrego Garcia deportation battle
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Abrego Garcia’s attorneys on Monday pointed to public remarks made by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and President Donald Trump stating they do not plan to return Abrego Garcia. These statements, they said, undercut any invocations of privilege in court.“Over and over again, official statements by the Government – in congressional testimony, television interviews and social media – confirm that producing this information would not imperil national security,” lawyers for Abrego Garcia told Judge Xinis on Monday, urging her to consider the administration’s decision to invoke state secrets privilege with a careful and “skeptical” eye.
(Fox more…)
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NY Times: DOGE Removes Dozens of Resurrected Contracts From Its List of Savings
Elon Musk’s group is no longer claiming credit for canceling those contracts after The New York Times reported that they were revived.
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The Times had identified 44 revived contracts, and 43 of them were still featured on the group’s online “Wall of Receipts” as of last week. Then, late Sunday, Mr. Musk’s group deleted those claims for 31 of the contracts from its website, eliminating $122 million of the savings it claimed to have achieved by cutting federal contracts.Those savings had actually disappeared days or weeks before, when federal agencies reversed cancellations they had made at the behest of Mr. Musk’s group. One revived contract, which DOGE said was worth $108 million, was restored by the Department of Veterans Affairs after eight days. Mr. Musk’s group still listed it as “terminated” for two months after that.
(NY Times more…)
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Verge: Elon Musk’s apparent power play at the Copyright Office completely backfired
Ripping off content to train AI wasn’t going to fly with either MAGA populists or MAGA media.
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Decoding Fox News: Can We Just Send Trump to Alcatraz Already?
A condensed overview of 15 hours of Fox News for the week ending 5/11/25>
(Decoding Fox News more…)
Project 2025 Tracker
DOGE Tracker
ProPublica: Elon Musk’s Demolition Crew