Toggle Daily
White House weighs an order creating a board to rule on NIH grant awards
September 21, 2026
Trump administration officials weigh an executive order for a board, including Russ Vought and Jay Bhattacharya, that would rule unanimously on NIH grant awards.
The NIH reviews grant proposals in two stages, with peer-review panels judging scientific merit and advisory councils making recommendations, and the directors of its 27 institutes and centers make the final funding decisions.
Key facts
- The comments sharply criticize Russell Vought, pointing to his part in Project 2025 and his sway inside the Trump administration.
- Sheryl Gay Stolberg, a Washington correspondent for The Times, covers President Trump's health agenda and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his work as health secretary.
- The heads of the NIH's 27 institutes and centers, mostly career civil servants, make the final calls on funding.
- “We will spend the allocation on excellent science this year,” Bhattacharya said before House appropriators at a March hearing.
- Vought and NIH director Jay Bhattacharya would both sit on the board, which could decide grant awards only by unanimous vote.
At a Friday meeting in the Oval Office, senior Trump administration officials took up how the National Institutes of Health spends its grant money, and the proposal at its center is an executive order for a new board with a say over grant awards. The Guardian, Politico and The Washington Post report that the board would include Russ Vought, who runs the White House budget office, and NIH director Jay Bhattacharya, and that it would have to reach its decisions on awards unanimously. Politico calls the board a significant escalation of the administration's drive for political control over federal health research money, and The New York Times frames the step as the White House reaching for control of NIH grants. The Guardian reports that officials at the meeting accused the NIH of paying for what they called woke initiatives, work that cut against Trump's political priorities.
The accounts describe the proposed body in different terms. In one, Trump directs Vought to draft an order for a board that would pick which NIH grants get funded. In another, Vought and other officials float an extra review of the agency's grant-making to Trump and talk through a possible order setting up a commission to review its grants. A third describes an outside committee able to veto biomedical awards that do not fit Trump's goals. Each version rests on unnamed people familiar with the meeting, two administration officials in one case and three people in another. On Harvard, Politico and The Washington Post report that Trump asked Bhattacharya on Friday to cut the university's funding and that Bhattacharya refused, and The New York Times reports that Trump complained repeatedly about his administration's failure to bring Harvard into line.
The New York Times reports that the administration has not reached a deal with Harvard, the nation's oldest and richest university, and that such a deal is central to the president's wider campaign against what he calls woke ideology in higher education. The Washington Post places the meeting in a longer effort. It reports that OMB has put forward a rule handing political appointees greater say over federal grants, which a government funding measure blocks until December, and that the agency has issued fewer grants under Trump in areas such as women's health. At a June hearing, Vought told members of Congress, “when we find something that’s problematic that our policy officials would not have caught, we need to be able to turn it off.” Politico reports that lawmakers generally back ample NIH budgets because the grant money flows to institutions in their own states, and it quotes an HHS spokesperson saying “NIH grant monies will be disbursed.” The outlets agree that the meeting took place, that the board as described would pair Vought with Bhattacharya and decide unanimously, and that the plan would widen political control over health research grants. Whether the order is issued, and whether it creates a board or a review commission, remains open.
An HHS spokesperson described the department as “committed to the core mission of the NIH” and said, “NIH grant monies will be disbursed.”
An HHS spokesperson
Still developing
The executive order has not been issued, and its final form, a board that decides which grants are funded or a commission that reviews them, is still open.
How settled the reporting is
Sources
- The New York Times — White House Moves to Take Control of N.I.H. Grants - The New York Times
- Politico — Trump asked budget chief to draft order bringing health research funding under his control - POLITICO
- The Guardian — Trump reportedly to form health funding board that could veto ‘woke’ initiatives
- The Washington Post — Vought pushes for scrutiny of NIH grants in Oval Office clash - The Washington Post
Toggle read the full reports of all 5 outlets counted on this event.