Vought Reportedly to Get Veto Power Over All NIH Grants

Vought veto power over all NIH grants is reportedly on the table at the White House. And the man positioned to hold it is the same official who has spent the past year trying to bend federal research spending to political will. Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, would gain the authority to approve or kill every individual grant the National Institutes of Health awards under a draft executive order now circulating in the administration. That's the power. It's on the table.

How the Fight Started

The push surfaced during a contentious White House meeting on a Friday, where NIH director Jay Bhattacharya tried to block yet another attempt to move funding decisions under political control. The confrontation pitted him directly against Vought, whose office has repeatedly sought to limit and steer research money. Bhattacharya ended up on the losing side. What began as a leak has since been confirmed and expanded by other outlets, and the picture now emerging is of an executive order that would hand Vought review authority over each grant the agency issues.

That outcome was not inevitable. Bhattacharya has his own grievances with the scientific establishment. He remains bitter that his ideas about letting COVID spread largely unchecked were sidelined, and he has treated his NIH post as a chance to correct what he sees as past wrongs. He has terminated funding for politically sensitive research and downplayed the plainly unscientific and dangerous positions of his boss, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Plenty of observers expected him to fall in line. He objected anyway. It did not hold.

What the Veto Would Actually Do

Under the reported arrangement, every single NIH grant would need approval from a committee that includes both Vought and Bhattacharya, and that committee would have to agree unanimously for any grant to move forward. One dissent. The money stops. It's that simple, and they're counting on it.

The practical problems arrive immediately.

During the Biden administration, the NIH funded more than 64,000 grants a year. As heads of their respective agencies, Vought and Bhattacharya have full-time jobs. Neither has time to seriously evaluate tens of thousands of proposals, and the committee would presumably weigh in only after funding decisions have already been made. Without a mechanism to redirect rejected money toward other grants, the agency could find itself unable to spend what Congress allocates. That may be exactly what Vought wants.

The system for deciding which science gets funded used to rest on scientific merit scores from expert peer reviewers. That process gave the NIH an obvious way to shift money from rejected grants to the highest-quality unfunded proposals.

Vought has tried to limit peer review in grant evaluation. So it's unclear if that fallback still exists. Strip out peer review. Add a political veto. And the machinery that turns a $47 billion budget into research, which depends on a process that officials have spent years trying to narrow, has no clear replacement.

Why Harvard Keeps Coming Up

Vought reportedly leveraged one of Trump's known weaknesses during the meeting: a desire to punish Harvard University. Early in the second term, the administration suspended all grant funding to several universities and sought large payments in exchange for restoring it and dropping investigations. Harvard refused and eventually won a lawsuit that brought the funding back. When news reports suggested Harvard had settled without a payoff, Trump immediately demanded $1 billion from the school as part of any deal. In that White House meeting, Vought pitched OMB control of NIH grants as an alternate route to targeting Harvard. Bhattacharya pushed back.

The veto is not really about one university. It is about who decides what counts as worthwhile science.

A Pattern of Setbacks

The NIH is the largest funder of biomedical research on the planet. Its $47 billion budget exceeds that of the next 10 research funders combined. And that money flows mostly through grants to academic researchers, supporting everything from basic biology to clinical trials, which means it's the engine behind a huge range of scientific work that wouldn't happen otherwise. It helped build the modern biotechnology industry.

Vought has spent the year trying to shrink that footprint. Immediately after Trump returned to office, the agency terminated a broad range of grants on topics like pandemic preparedness and health disparities and proposed a budget that would have cut the NIH nearly in half. Congress rejected the cut. A court voided the policy behind the terminations. Vought came back with new grant funding rules that would make political considerations central to which proposals get money. Congress put that rule on hold too.

• Grant terminations on pandemic preparedness and health disparities: blocked by a court.
• Proposed budget cutting the NIH nearly in half: rejected by Congress.
• New rules inserting political criteria into grant decisions: placed on hold by Congress.

Vought was frustrated by Congress. He wouldn't settle for blocking whole fields of research. So he went around both, and the executive order, if signed, would put him inside the grant-by-grant process itself.

The Court Fight Nobody Has Filed Yet

Legal challenges seem near certain. The move fits the standard for illegal administrative action almost too neatly: arbitrary and capricious. It solves no identified problem. No law requires it. It is hard to imagine a legal justification, and a desire to stop the NIH from spending its budget does not count as one.

There is a catch, though. For the policy to reach a courtroom, someone must first show they are sufficiently harmed to have standing to sue. That takes time. As with so many other administration actions, the order could do real damage before a judge ever rules on it.

It's simple. And it's grim. For researchers across the country, the practical effect of Vought veto power over all NIH grants comes down to this: a single objection from one political appointee, one voice among thousands, could end a study before it even begins. The peer review system that once sorted good science from bad would sit idle. And thousands of proposals that used to move through an expert process would instead wait on the judgment of two men with other jobs.

Frequently Asked Questions

What authority would Russell Vought gain under the draft executive order described in the article?

Under the draft executive order circulating in the administration, Vought would gain the authority to approve or kill every individual grant the National Institutes of Health awards. Every single NIH grant would need approval from a committee that includes both Vought and Bhattacharya, and that committee would have to agree unanimously for any grant to move forward.

Why did Vought reportedly pitch OMB control of NIH grants during the White House meeting?

Vought reportedly leveraged one of Trump's known weaknesses during the meeting: a desire to punish Harvard University. He pitched OMB control of NIH grants as an alternate route to targeting Harvard after the university refused to settle and won a lawsuit that brought its funding back.

How has Vought's previous attempts to control NIH funding been received by Congress and the courts?

Congress rejected a proposed budget that would have cut the NIH nearly in half, and a court voided the policy behind grant terminations on topics like pandemic preparedness and health disparities. Congress also put on hold new grant funding rules that would make political considerations central to which proposals get money. Vought was frustrated by Congress and went around both, leading to the executive order that would put him inside the grant-by-grant process itself.

What practical problems would arise from requiring Vought and Bhattacharya to approve tens of thousands of NIH grants?

During the Biden administration, the NIH funded more than 64,000 grants a year, and as heads of their respective agencies, Vought and Bhattacharya have full-time jobs, so neither has time to seriously evaluate tens of thousands of proposals. Without a mechanism to redirect rejected money toward other grants, the agency could find itself unable to spend what Congress allocates. It is also unclear whether the peer review fallback still exists, since Vought has tried to limit peer review in grant evaluation.

Who tried to block the move to give Vought review authority over NIH grants, and what was the outcome?

NIH director Jay Bhattacharya tried to block yet another attempt to move funding decisions under political control during a contentious White House meeting, pitting him directly against Vought. Bhattacharya ended up on the losing side, and the article reports that he objected anyway, but it did not hold.