
Josh Marshall
Last night I noted news which has spread like wildfire through the American scientific and medical research communities. The NIH released a seemingly down-in-the-weeds new directive which has the effect of drastically reducing the federal funds that go to institutions doing basic medical research. Put as briefly as possible, NIH medical research grants are divided into funds for this specific study (“direct”) and funds that go to the institution which houses the lab conducting the study and the infrastructure that makes it possible (“indirect”). That latter category is a major funding source for research universities and academic medical centers. Last night’s directive reduces that stream of funding somewhere between 50% and 75%. The precise breakdown ranges from institution to institution. But that’s a good measure of the level of funding cuts we’re talking about.
Read MoreLet us say that TPM Readers are almost unimaginably over-represented in the country’s colleges and universities, and perhaps even more so in the research arms, which are of course primarily in the sciences and medical research fields. So we’re getting quite a lot of you writing in with various details and context for this new NIH directive that went into effect overnight which drastically reduces federal support for university research arms and academic medical centers. I’m going to be publishing more of them but I wanted to start with this one from TPM Reader RM …
Read MoreMajor news out of NIH tonight, which I’m told will have a dramatic impact on all academic medical centers and research universities generally. Anyone familiar with the sciences knows that scientists bring in grant money for various research projects and the grant money is split between the grantee, who might be a researcher or a lab, etc., and the host institution. So the hospital or the university, etc. The new directive limits what goes to the institution for “indirect costs” to 15%. I don’t know this area well enough to get into the precise rationales for which rates make the most sense in the abstract. But that’s not really the point. From what I can tell this directive slashes the kind of government research funding available to these institution by as much as 60% or 70%. (I want to keep those percentages vague because this isn’t my area but I think that captures at least the general scale.) So these sound like huge budget shortfalls for academic research institutions, academic medical centers and so forth. And this is above and beyond the “freezes” that are still mostly in effect, albeit in many cases unofficially.
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One of the continuing mysteries about the DOGE intrusion into the super sensitive payments computer system housed at the Treasury Department is just what Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent as well as other administration officials and lawyers mean by “read-only” access. For starters, it’s not clear that “read-only” is actually a privilege level on the systems in question. But that’s kind of a technical detail. More importantly, both Wired and TPM have independently reported that now-defenestrated DOGE operative Marko Elez in fact had administrator-level privileges on the same system. In other words, not “read only,” but full access to do pretty much anything if they chose to. And that’s not what people are thinking when they hear “read-only.” So what is it? Are the Treasury Secretary or the DOJ lawyers who went into court lying? Is there some technicality we’re not thinking of?
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I’ve made this point a few times in passing in other posts. But as events develop I wanted to explain it succinctly and with emphasis. Democrats are out of power and have very few actual levers to impact what’s happening. Yelling is important. Driving opposition in what is ultimately a battle for public opinion is important. Contesting everything through the courts is important. But there is only one hard lever of power currently available: that’s the help the White House needs from Democrats on a budget and the debt ceiling. This morning explainer from Punchbowl makes clear why that help is essential. It’s not just helpful. It’s essential. The GOP majorities are simply too small, especially in the House. The GOP is simply too fractious.
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The Times this morning has an apparent explanation for why DOGE operatives were so eager to take control of the unified government payment system at the Treasury: they wanted to be able to shut off payments to USAID projects without going through USAID personnel. They say this is based on emails between Elon-backed Trump appointees now at Treasury. I assume this is accurate in itself but I wouldn’t be sure this is the only reason and perhaps not even the main reason. But it’s the only non-speculative explanation we have so far.
David Kurtz notes this morning that the judge overseeing a lawsuit aimed at halting the actions at Treasury is almost certainly being given false information about what’s actually happening, though as David notes we can’t say for certain the Justice Department lawyers representing the administration are affirmatively lying. (They may use weasel words; they may not themselves know; many possibilities.) Those lawyers continue to insist that the Musk operatives at Treasury only have “read-only” access to the computers. As Wired and I have independently reported, that’s not true. They have full administrator privileges and, as I have reported, they’ve already altered the code.
Read MoreIRS staffers (precisely how many is unclear) who opted for deferred resignation program (i.e., the “buy out”) have now been informed that they need to work through May 15th.


As Elon Musk and Donald Trump, in a secondary role, steamroll through the federal government, there’s a taxonomy to the players that is important to understand. It’s semi-hidden at the moment. But you can see it showing up if you look up close and it will likely become more visible over time.
There are three big factions operating in Trump’s government with currently overlapping but very distinct aims and strategies. First, you have MAGA, which wants to punish and displace the people who made life hard for Trump in his first term and replace them with loyalists. That’s mostly about power and personal fealty to Trump. Ideology is mostly secondary to the core aim. Second, you have Christian nationalists who want to seize the power of the state to execute a top down re-traditionalization of American society and culture. Russell Vought is key to this group. The basic theory goes back into the aughts, when a faction of conservatives decided (essentially a counsel of despair) that they had lost control of American culture and that state power was required to get it back. Third are people like Elon Musk who want to radically hollow out the government, outsource its functions and replace many of those functions with novel technologies — AI, cryptocurrency, etc. This is a mix of Silicon Valley “move fast and break things” business culture combined with “dark enlightenment” Yarvinian degenerate thought.
Read MoreMade a point over the weekend about “shock and awe” and how one reacts to that when often there doesn’t seem like there’s much you can do. As we see in most of history, the key in many cases is simply holding on. As I tried to convey in that post, “shock and awe” is primarily a psychological operation meant to trigger confusion, paralysis and collapse. But the impact of speed and multiplicity diminishes over time and fairly quickly. So for the literally millions of people on the direct receiving end of what’s happening right now, primarily in the federal workforce, simply holding on is “doing something.” The whole point of this effort is to create lots of faits accompli during that initial phase of disorientation and paralysis. Pretty quickly the impact of that shock and disorientation and paralysis wears off. So simply holding on through that first period is a big thing. The balance of powers and levers available start to shift. And in some cases rapidly. I’m not being pollyannaish about it. The situation still remains grave and with most of the power on one side. But they do become relatively less powerful with each day that passes. Not by much but by some.
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