How Trump Muzzled Science
Discredit, obstruction, even censorship: Donald Trump’s anti-science actions were closely followed during his first term. Is this enough to signal the future of his second term?
The Meta News | January 24, 2025 | Lucile Veissier
“I’ve seen it, I’ve read some of it, it’s good,” declared Donald Trump, already President of the United States, in a nonchalant tone in November 2018 in front of journalists’ microphones during the presentation to Congress of the National Climate Report. But the verdict was quickly delivered: “I don’t believe it. No, I don’t believe it.” Two years of work had been necessary for federal agencies, united under the leadership of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), as well as the participation of some 300 renowned scientists, to develop these 1,500 pages. While the Trump administration encouraged the extraction of fossil fuels, this heavy volume sounded the alarm about climate change, which was very likely to “lead to increasing losses in American infrastructure and assets and hamper the rate of economic growth during this century.” A report in return widely questioned by the White House which judged it “inaccurate” and whose spokesperson declared that it was “largely based on the most extreme scenario”.
War is peace. This is just one example of executive branch science suppression between 2017 and 2021, documented in the Silencing Science Tracker. Romany Webb, an environmental law researcher at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University in New York, launched the initiative with her colleagues a year after the Republican’s first inauguration: “We saw, in that first year, the Trump administration take many steps to obstruct scientific research and debate. Even though many of these actions were reported in the media, it was difficult for people to realize the extent of the anti-science actions that were taking place.” Romany Webb and her colleagues combed through the press and listed each obstruction within federal agencies such as health and environment, as well as in the US equivalent of ministries, the departments.