Trump Orders Plan for White House Board to Approve Every NIH Grant

President Donald Trump has directed Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought to draft an executive order that would create a board with the power to block any grant the National Institutes of Health wants to award. Under the plan, the board could act only by unanimous agreement, and its members would be Vought and NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, according to Politico, which first reported the directive.

What happened in the Oval Office on Friday

The directive followed a Friday meeting in the Oval Office where Trump asked Bhattacharya to cut NIH funding to Harvard University and Bhattacharya declined, Politico reported, citing people familiar with the meeting. Also in the room, according to that account, were Vought, Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, White House Counsel Will Scharf and OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta. One person familiar with the meeting described it to Politico this way: the president called Bhattacharya into the principals' office.

Trump has separately pushed to cut roughly $2.6 billion in Harvard's federal funding over allegations the university mishandled antisemitism complaints, a dispute that predates Friday's meeting and remains contested by the university.

How the board would actually work

NIH currently awards grants after applications clear scientific peer-review panels, called study sections, followed by advisory council review and sign-off from agency officials. The board Trump has ordered would add a political layer on top of that process: neither Vought nor Bhattacharya could approve a grant alone, and either one could block it. Administration officials described the unanimous-consent requirement to Politico; the executive order itself has not been drafted publicly, and OMB has not released text.

A second attempt after Congress already pushed back once

This is not the administration's first attempt to put political appointees between NIH and its grant recipients. OMB circulated an earlier proposal in May that would have let political appointees at federal science agencies approve or reject research awards directly. Congress responded by inserting a provision into the September stopgap spending bill that temporarily blocks that earlier OMB rule. The bill funds the government, and keeps that block in place, through December 11, according to Government Executive.

“With this plan they would put political appointees in control of decisions that should be made by expert scientists. This newest dystopian move would destroy what remains of merit-based review, dealing a crippling blow to science.”

Lofgren's statement addressed the May proposal specifically, not the new board structure Trump ordered Friday, and her office had not issued a separate response to the board plan as of publication. The new board would reach a similar result through a narrower mechanism. Rather than rewriting agency-wide rules, it places two named officials directly inside NIH's existing award process with the ability to block any single grant.

Where HHS stands publicly

A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson told Politico the department remains committed to NIH's core mission and said grant money will still be disbursed. Neither OMB nor the White House offered additional comment on the board's structure or timeline when the story published. A wire pickup of the same reporting carried by The National News Desk noted the order has not been finalized or issued.

The stopgap bill's December 11 deadline means Congress will have to decide within roughly three months whether to renew, narrow or drop its block on the earlier OMB rule, the same window in which Vought's new board proposal, if it becomes an executive order, would likely take effect. Neither Politico's reporting nor the wire pickups of it identify a target date for Trump to sign the order.