Michael Kratsios: Trump's Science Agenda, Anti-Science Claims, Fauci's Damage, DEI & China
with Michael Kratsios
25 Aug 20266 min read1h 15m
TL;DR
Michael Kratsios argues the U.S. science enterprise has stagnated not from lack of funding — NIH's budget tripled from $14B to $47B since 1998 — but because the government keeps doing the same things with more money, while roughly 25% of NSF grants under Biden went to DEI-related work rather than hard science. His 'New Golden Age' agenda proposes meta-science experiments at NSF and NIH, 'golden ticket' grants to incentivize bold ideas, flexible grant durations, and a flagship 'Genesis Mission' to double U.S. scientific output by applying AI to the hardest research challenges.
Key Moments
Michael Kratsios
“Senator Ted Cruz and the committee on uh at on in the Senate did an analysis of the grants that were given during the Biden administration and they found that roughly one quarter or 25% of grants at NSF during that time period went towards DEI related quote unquote science.”
Kratsios is explaining where he believes NSF funding was misallocated under the Biden administration, justifying grant terminations.
“The thing that is not true and what the data does not support is that it is a climate emergency.”
Kratsios is framing the administration's position on climate change — acknowledging warming and human CO2 contribution while rejecting the 'emergency' framing.
“They threw in this extreme scenario which most people believe would never happen and now this year proven that it will never happen because they even removed it from all their predictions.”
Kratsios is describing the RCP 8.5 climate scenario being retired by the IPCC, arguing it underpinned decades of alarming media coverage.
“Each of the evaluators are going to be given one or two or three golden tickets. And the theory is that you know the um reviewer will then be able to unilaterally without the rest of the of the committee agreeing can make a selection of a particular grant.”
Kratsios is describing the 'golden ticket' grant reform being piloted at NSF to encourage reviewers to champion bold, unconventional research ideas.
“They have been trying to essentially figure out how to do EUV lithography since we put the export controls in 2019. No breakthrough has happened. There's nothing more important to their economy than solving that scientific problem and haven't been able to do that.”
Kratsios is using China's failure to crack EUV lithography as evidence that top-down centralized science planning is inferior to the U.S. decentralized model.
Michael Kratsios is the Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) at the White House under the second Trump administration. He previously served as the Chief Technology Officer of the United States during Trump's first term, where he ran the technology portfolio for the president. Kratsios is a central architect of the administration's 'Science: A New Golden Age' report, which lays out a reform agenda for how the U.S. government funds and conducts scientific research.
Takeaways
1
Golden tickets aim to unlock contrarian science NSF peer review currently incentivizes scientists to propose safe, consensus-friendly ideas because grants require group approval. The new 'golden ticket' system — piloted from Denmark — gives individual reviewers the unilateral power to fund a grant even if the full committee disagrees, specifically designed to get wild, out-of-the-box research funded.
2
NIH budget tripled, breakthroughs did not NIH funding went from $14B in 1998 to $47B in 2024, yet by 'Eroom's Law' research productivity has fallen roughly 80-fold since 1950, halving every 9 years. Kratsios argues the core problem is institutional inertia — agencies keep doing the same things with more money rather than asking whether that money is actually working.
3
China can't crack EUV despite all-in effort since 2019 Despite having centralized national priority and vast resources, China has made no breakthrough in EUV lithography since U.S. export controls were imposed in 2019. Kratsios argues this is the strongest real-world evidence that top-down directed science systems are inferior to the U.S. competitive, decentralized model.
4
25% of NSF Biden-era grants were DEI-related A Senate analysis led by Ted Cruz found roughly one quarter of NSF grants during the Biden administration went toward DEI-related 'science,' amounting to an estimated $8B over four years. The Trump administration used this as the primary justification for terminating active grants, framing it as a depoliticization of the scientific funding process.
5
RCP 8.5 worst-case climate scenario was quietly retired The IPCC's most extreme climate scenario, RCP 8.5, which drove the bulk of alarming media and policy coverage for two decades, was removed from predictions after scientists determined it couldn't be substantiated. Kratsios uses this as evidence that climate policy was built on the most extreme — and least likely — projections, not the central case.
6
Genesis Mission targets doubling U.S. scientific output with AI The administration's flagship science initiative — the Genesis Mission — aims to double total U.S. scientific output by embedding AI across every major research domain, from materials science to math. This is distinct from funding AI companies; it means pushing existing basic-research scientists to use AI as an accelerant in their own disciplines.
7
Government science should focus on pre-competitive basic research Kratsios argues government funding should concentrate on early-stage discovery science where there is no private sector incentive — not compete with the hundreds of billions flowing into AI and quantum from venture capital. The government's unique role is funding things the market will never fund because there's no near-term commercial return.