Frozen copy retrieved 2026-07-25T14:01:15Z for audit 2026-07-25T23-15-46Z. Original URL: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/trump-administration-concedes-canceled-research-grants-blue-states-rcna589129. The Stochastic Parrot does not host or redistribute; this snapshot exists solely so that quoted spans remain verifiable if the original page changes. Character offsets below index into this plain text; highlighted spans are the quotes cited in the audit.

Trump administration concedes that it canceled research grants in blue states

NBC News · back to the audit
The Trump administration admitted that it terminated nearly 300 federal research grants "solely because" the projects were connected to states that voted against President Donald Trump in 2024 and had two Democratic senators in office, according to court filings. Novak wrote that with one exception, "the 284 terminated grants had a recipient location and/or at least one place of performance in a state that awarded its electoral votes to Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and has two Democratic-caucusing Senators." "DOE accepts that the inclusion of grants in the October notice tranche was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient's state, i.e., whether the recipient's location and/or place of performance was in a Blue State or a non-Blue State," Novak wrote. The filing comes as the Office of Management and Budget proposed a new rule that would allow political appointees to gain unprecedented control over the $1 trillion per year that is provided by federal grants. Novak wrote that 624 grants were flagged for termination, of which OMB identified 284 specific grants in October 2025 to actually terminate. Of the 284, all but one were in Harris-won, two-Democratic-senator states. The remaining 340 proposed-for-termination grants that were NOT canceled all had locations in Trump-won states or states with at least one Republican-caucusing senator. Novak wrote the decision was not based on "any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction, or performance-based factor." The article includes the DOE's pushback: press secretary Ben Dietderich said the filing is "a misrepresentation" and "none of the termination decisions were based on political considerations." It contrasts this with Energy Secretary Chris Wright's June House testimony that "no decisions were made on politics" -- "It's bulls---t. We're going to say it a million times." The article also reports on the OMB proposed rule to let political appointees screen grants and terminate those "no longer in the Federal Government's interest."