Rudy Giuliani Is Hurt in Car Crash in New Hampshire - The New York Times

Giuliani Is Hurt in Car Crash in New Hampshire

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Rudolph W. Giuliani, former New York City mayor and lawyer for President Trump, was injured in a car accident in New Hampshire. He suffered a fractured vertebra, injuries to his leg and arm, and contusions and lacerations after his vehicle was struck from behind. Giuliani is expected to recover.

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Mr. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and lawyer for President Trump, suffered a fractured vertebra, his head of security said.

22m ago

Rudolph W. Giuliani was in a car accident in New Hampshire.Jefferson Siegel for The New York Times

Aug. 31, 2025Updated 5:32 p.m. ET

"Rudolph W. Giuliani was injured in a car accident in New Hampshire on Saturday evening and taken to a hospital with a fractured vertebra, according to the head of security for the former mayor of New York City and lawyer for President Trump.

He is expected to recover, the security chief said.

Mr. Giuliani, 81, was traveling on a highway after having stopped to help a “woman who was the victim of a domestic violence incident,” Michael Ragusa, Mr. Giuliani’s security official, said in a social media post.

Mr. Ragusa did not offer additional information about the incident, including where in New Hampshire it occurred or whether Mr. Giuliani was behind the wheel. Mr. Giuliani called 911 and waited with the woman until help arrived, Mr. Ragusa said.

When Mr. Giuliani resumed his journey, his vehicle was struck from behind “at high speed,” Mr. Ragusa said. Mr. Giuliani was taken to an undisclosed hospital. He was diagnosed with a fractured thoracic vertebra, injuries to his leg and left arm, and contusions and lacerations, Mr. Ragusa said.

Mr. Ragusa said that Mr. Giuliani was in “good spirits and recovering tremendously.”

Mr. Giuliani served as mayor of New York City from 1994 through 2001. A post from his social media account on Sunday afternoon thanked Mr. Giuliani’s business partner, Maria Ryan, who is a nurse practitioner in New Hampshire, for “overseeing” his care.

Andrew Giuliani, the former mayor’s son whom President Trump recently named as executive director of the 2026 men’s World Cup task force, acknowledged the crash on social media and said that his father was tough.

“Your prayers mean the world,” he said. “As a son, I can tell you I’m honored to have a Dad that I can call the toughest SOB I’ve ever seen!”

Curtis Sliwa, the Republican candidate for mayor, said he was on Staten Island on Sunday afternoon when he heard about the crash and stopped to pray for Mr. Giuliani.

“As you know, on Staten Island, Rudy is a beloved figure, and a few of us said a prayer wishing him a swift and pain-free recovery,” Mr. Sliwa said.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Maggie Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President Trump.

Emma G. Fitzsimmons is the City Hall bureau chief for The Times, covering Mayor Eric Adams and his administration."

Rudy Giuliani Is Hurt in Car Crash in New Hampshire - The New York Times

Trump news at a glance: Backlash in Chicago as mayor defies president’s immigration crackdown | Trump administration | The Guardian

Trump news at a glance: Backlash in Chicago as mayor defies president’s immigration crackdown

"Brandon Johnson has signed an executive order to counter plans to send federal agents into the city. Key US politics stories from Saturday 30 August at a glance

Chicago mayor Brandon Johnson has accused Donald Trump of ‘behaving outside the bounds of the constitution’ with his immigration crackdown. Photograph: Scott Olson/Getty Images

Resistance is growing to Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with the mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, signing an executive order to counter the president’s move.

The order prevents the Chicago police department from collaborating with federal authorities on patrols, immigration enforcement, or conducting traffic stops and checkpoints. It also restricts officers from wearing face coverings to hide their identities.

Johnson has accused the president of “behaving outside the bounds of the constitution” and of being “reckless and out of control”, while the White House insists the potential flood of federal agents is about “cracking down on crime”.

“If these Democrats focused on fixing crime in their own cities instead of doing publicity stunts to criticize the president, their communities would be much safer,” said White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson.

Here are the key stories.

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Chicago mayor signs executive order directing city to resist Trump’s immigration raids

The mayor of Chicago has signed an executive order outlining how the city will attempt to resist Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.

Brandon Johnson pushed back on Saturday against what he called the “out-of-control” Trump administration’s plan to deploy large numbers of federal officers into the country’s third-largest city, which could take place within days.

The Chicago police department will be barred from helping federal authorities with civil immigration enforcement or any related patrols, traffic stops and checkpoints during the surge, according to the executive order Johnson signed.

_{Read the full story}

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More than 500 workers at Voice of America and other broadcasters to be laid off

The agency that oversees Voice of America and other government-funded international broadcasters is eliminating jobs for more than 500 employees, a Trump administration official said. The move could ratchet up a months-long legal challenge over the news outlets’ fate.

Kari Lake, the acting CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, announced the latest round of job cuts late on Friday, one day after a federal judge blocked her from removing Michael Abramowitz as VOA director.

_{Read the full story}

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Bernie Sanders demands RFK Jr step down as health secretary

Bernie Sanders has joined in on growing public calls for Donald Trump’s health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to resign after recent chaos across US health agencies.

In an op-ed published in the New York Times on Saturday, the Vermont senator accused Kennedy of “endangering the health of the American people now and into the future”, adding: “He must resign.”

_{Read the full story}

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Senior Pentagon official had affair with ‘notorious’ astrologer who stalked him, lawsuit says

A senior Pentagon official in the Trump administration had a months-long extramarital affair with a woman claiming to be “the internet’s most notorious astrologer” – and claims in a defamation lawsuit filed in Florida that she cyberstalked him and his wife after they split up.

_{Read the full story}

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What else happened today:

• Still getting up to speed on the latest with Trump’s tariffs? This handy explainer has everything you need to know.

• The Guardian’s Washington correspondent David Smith examines diversity in the Trump administration in this feature entitled: ‘Racist as hell’: Trump’s cabinet is almost all white, and he keeps firing Black officials

• Want to know more about Cracker Barrel? This analysis: What the Cracker Barrel backlash shows about Maga’s influence on US culture, explores the latest controversy.

• Vineyards assess damage as wildfire rips through California wine country."

Trump news at a glance: Backlash in Chicago as mayor defies president’s immigration crackdown | Trump administration | The Guardian

The Typical American College Student Is Not Who You Think - The New York Times

The Typical College Student Is Not Who You Think

"As a fight over the future of elite higher education consumes university leaders and politicians, most college students live in a very different world with very different challenges.

Published Aug. 25, 2025Updated Aug. 26, 2025

Jasmin Cross studies at her kitchen table while her sons play. Ms. Cross attends Portland Community College in Portland, Ore.Amanda Lucier for The New York Times

There are more than 19 million college students in the United States. Most are well removed from academia’s corridors of wealth and power, cavernous football stadiums and carefree nights hanging out in dorms. The war between President Trump and Harvard University barely registers to them.

Instead, many live close to home, often juggling work or taking care of children with their course load. Many are enrolled part time or in community colleges.

The American higher education system is a showcase of individual ambitions and academic variety. But many parts of that system are under strain, buffeted by budget cuts, demographic changes and even a pressure campaign from Mr. Trump. And for many college students, this strain is making the ability to earn a degree even harder.

43 percent of undergraduates attend community college

Community colleges, along with regional public universities, are the workhorses of higher education in the United States, which has roughly 4,000 degree-granting schools. Some nine million students are enrolled at community colleges, accounting for 43 percent of America’s undergraduates.

Students at LaGuardia Community College in Queens, N.Y.Jake Naughton for The New York Times 

About 75 percent of community college students are enrolled part time

Many of these students — nearly three in four — are enrolled on a part-time basis, squeezing in a handful of classes for slow, sometimes unsteady progress toward a degree. They are often drawn to community colleges because of lower tuition costs, schedule flexibility, smaller classes and proximity to home.

20 percent of all undergraduate students are parents

One in five undergraduate students is a parent, balancing term papers with temper tantrums. Many children of students are in school themselves.

1.4 million undergraduate students with children are single mothers

Roughly 1.4 million undergraduate students are single mothers, making up 9 percent of America’s undergraduate population.

Students work at laptops at Portland Community College. Jenny Kane/Associated Press

10.3 million students take at least some classes online

The pandemic ushered in a new era of online education that built on administrators’ realization that the internet could be a cash cow for their schools and an academic pathway for busy students. Now, a majority of students take at least some of their classes online.

And beyond the enormous range of boot camps, certifications and other credentials — many of which researchers believe are of limited quality and little long-term value — many colleges and universities offer entirely online degree programs.

26 percent of students take classes exclusively online

That is a rise from 11 percent a decade ago. Many online students will never visit the schools, or even the states, from which they earn degrees. Their loyalty to the college can be nearly nonexistent.

Student housing at Jackson College in Jackson, Michigan.Emily Elconin for The New York Times

25 percent of all undergraduate students live with their parents

Dorm life is not the norm for most students, with only about 16 percent living on campuses.

The average student is $19,000 in debt

The cost of college has generally smoothed out in recent years. High sticker prices have flattened after a long run of growth, but the amount of outstanding student loans continues to rise.

10.8 million students owe more than $44,000

The median former college student currently owes about $19,000, up from $13,000 two decades ago, with adjustments for inflation.  Students with graduate degrees are often on the hook for far more, owing an average of $69,000.

Students at a gift shop on the campus of Jackson College.Emily Elconin for The New York Times

Two-thirds of student loan debt belong to women

Student debt has race and gender gaps. Black women have the highest debt load, with an average of $33,000. That is more than three times the amount that white men are carrying, and $15,000 more than what white women owe.

About a third of all undergraduate students received a Pell Grant

Most students who attend college are the recipients of some form of financial aid. Students received more than $100 billion in federal, state and local awards last year.

More than $31 billion in Pell Grants were disbursed to undergraduate students attending U.S. colleges and universities.

41 million people attended college but never graduated

At least 12 percent of the U.S. population have earned some college credits, but do not have a degree to show for it.

Sources: Department of Education, including a New York Times analysis of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study from the Department of Education and the integrated Postsecondary Education Data System from the Department of Education; Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 2025 Student Loan Update; American Association of University Women;  National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.

Alan Blinder is a national correspondent for The Times, covering education.

Steven Rich is a data reporter at The Times, using data analysis to investigate major issues and contextualize current events."

The Typical American College Student Is Not Who You Think - The New York Times

Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Tactics in Gaza - The New York Times

Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Tactics in Gaza

"Among the recent public letters was one from dozens of Orthodox rabbis demanding “moral clarity” to what they called a humanitarian crisis.

Published Aug. 26, 2025Updated Aug. 27, 2025

Ari Lev Fornari, center, a rabbi at a synagogue in Philadelphia, led a rally this month calling for the end of the war in Gaza, outside the Trump International Hotel in Manhattan.Scott Heins for The New York Times

As Israel’s tactics in Gaza have increasingly provoked international condemnation, rabbis from across the world are taking the unusual step of speaking out against the Israeli government’s conduct in the war, on moral and religious grounds.

Over the past few weeks, as reports of mass killings in Gaza have spread and experts declared the area is officially suffering from famine, a significant number of clergy across the spectrum of Jewish observance and affiliation have signed a series of high-profile, carefully crafted public letters criticizing the Israeli government.

Associations representing Reform congregations and Conservative rabbis — denominations that encompass nearly half of American Jews — have called for Israel to release additional aid, citing Jewish values and what one group called a “moral priority” to feed the hungry. Nearly three dozen rabbis were arrested in demonstrations in New York and Washington last month, calling for more aid to Gaza and for Israel and its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to end the war.

Perhaps most notably, the ranks of those raising concerns now also include a small group of Orthodox rabbis, whose communities have broadly not wavered in their staunch support of Israel throughout the war.

Last week about 80 Orthodox rabbis signed an open letter demanding “moral clarity, responsibility, and a Jewish Orthodox response” to what they called a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Signers included chief rabbis of Poland and Norway, and the former chief rabbi of Ireland. Organizers said that more than half of those who signed the letter were from the United States.

“We affirm that Hamas’s sins and crimes do not relieve the government of Israel of its obligations to make whatever efforts are necessary to prevent mass starvation,” the letter said. “Orthodox Jewry, as some of Israel’s most devoted supporters, bears a unique moral responsibility. We must affirm that Judaism’s vision of justice and compassion extends to all human beings.”

A primary organizer was Rabbi Yosef Blau, the former religious leader of Yeshiva University, a Modern Orthodox institution in Manhattan. Rabbi Blau said his concerns encompassed not only the Israeli government’s treatment of civilians in Gaza but also reported violence against Palestinians by Orthodox Jewish settlers in the West Bank.

“The responsibility and the lack of concern that Hamas has for the health and welfare of its own people does not free Israel from having responsibility for the destruction that it has caused,” Rabbi Blau said. “It is not a zero-sum game.”

The Jewish community is far from a monolith, and support for the tactics and mission of Israel’s war in Gaza has varied. But until recently, many mainstream Jewish organizations and leaders had defended Israel’s war against Hamas, if with growing unease.

Orthodox Jews, who tend to prioritize support for the Israeli government, and the groups that represent them have largely remained silent on the humanitarian crisis. Many of signatories on Rabbi Blau’s letter came from the liberal edge of Orthodox Jewry. They were organized by an activist and social worker, David Nyer.

The Orthodox Union, the prominent umbrella organization for Orthodox communities, was not affiliated with the letter.

A group of Jewish clergy staged a sit-in last month at the office of John Thune, the Senate majority leader, to bring attention to the war in Gaza.Sue Dorfman/Sue Dorfman, via Associated Press

The deteriorating conditions in Gaza and the denial of aid to Palestinian civilians is prompting some who consider themselves ardent supporters of Israel to publicly object to the far-right government’s stewardship of the war, arguing that it crosses a religious and moral line. The Torah and Jewish tradition command Jews to feed the poor and hungry, respect the sanctity of life and show mercy and compassion.

Rabbi Michael Schudrich, the chief rabbi of Poland, said he had seen other letters but hadn’t signed one until the Orthodox letter last week.

“Even in the midst of a horrific immoral war started by Hamas, it doesn’t take away from our responsibility to feed and to provide medical care for the civilian population,” he said.

Some of the rabbis’ positions echo the anguished calls of protesters and prominent academics, authors, politicians and retired military leaders in Israel, who are increasingly raising alarms about potential war crimes being carried out by the government in their name.

Ministers in the Netanyahu government who have called for Israeli settlers to expel and replace Palestinians in Gaza have “consistently morally compromised Israel’s actions,” the Union for Reform Judaism said last month.

“No one should spend the bulk of their time arguing technical definitions between starvation and pervasive hunger. The situation is dire, and it is deadly,” the groupwrote. “Nor should we accept arguments that because Hamas is the primary reason many Gazans are either starving or on the verge of starving, that the Jewish State is not also culpable in this human disaster.”

The Rabbinical Assembly, the organization of Conservative rabbis, cited “the Jewish tradition” in calling on the Israeli government to “alleviate civilian suffering” and “do everything in its power” to ensure that food, water and medical supplies reached Gazans.

Even the American Jewish Committee, one of the country’s most solidly pro-Israel organizations, expressed “immense sorrow for the grave toll this war has taken on Palestinian civilians.”

Still, there is no sign of a unified public effort by the largest American Jewish institutions to pressure Israel into ending the war. Many pulpit rabbis have been reticent to speak out given the complexities of leading a congregation.

In the United States, the war has created painful rifts within the Jewish community dividing families, congregations, religious schools and community organizations. Older and more religiously observant Jews have been stauncher defenders of Israel, arguing that the country’s very survival is at stake — as well as the safety of Jews outside Israel.

But as the war has dragged on, younger and more secular Jews have recoiled from images of carnage and destruction in Gaza, seeing Israel and its government as responsible for the war’s continuation and its toll of devastation.

Many rabbis have found themselves caught in the middle. Some have shied away from discussing Israel from the pulpit or making strong public statements. Others have gingerly sought common ground, introducing new prayers reflecting on the war or hosting community conversations. Many have fiercely advocated the release of all the hostages, a position broadly shared across the Jewish world.

Some observant Jews who have felt unable to criticize Israel in their own communities called the recent response heartening.

“There’s a bit of a feedback loop: When rabbis see that more people in their communities feel comfortable speaking up, it gives them permission,” said Esther Sperber, a founder of Smol Emuni — Hebrew for “faithful left” — a group of observant Jews with progressive political views. Since the group was formed in April, nearly 3,000 people have joined its email list.

“I think that is something that many of us have been waiting for a long time for,” she added, “for the American Jewish community to feel comfortable speaking up in that way.”

Elizabeth Dias is The Times’s national religion correspondent, covering faith, politics and values.

Lisa Lerer is a national political reporter for The Times, based in New York. She has covered American politics for nearly two decades.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 6 of the New York edition with the headline: Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Actions."

Rabbis Emerge as Growing Voice of Criticism of Israel’s Tactics in Gaza - The New York Times

Opinion | Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign - The New York Times

Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign

Aug. 30, 2025

Mark Peterson for The New York Times

By Bernie Sanders

"Senator Sanders, independent of Vermont, is the ranking member of the Senate Committee for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is endangering the health of the American people now and into the future. He must resign.

Mr. Kennedy and the rest of the Trump administration tell us, over and over, that they want to Make America Healthy Again. That’s a great slogan. I agree with it. The problem is that since coming into office President Trump and Mr. Kennedy have done exactly the opposite.

This week, Mr. Kennedy pushed out the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after less than one month on the job because she refused to act as a rubber stamp for his dangerous policies. Four leading officials at C.D.C. resigned the same week. One of those officials said Mr. Kennedy’s team asked him to “change studies that have been settled in the past” apparently to fit Mr. Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views. This is not Making America Healthy Again.

Despite the overwhelming opposition of the medical community, Secretary Kennedy has continued his longstanding crusade against vaccines and his advocacy of conspiracy theories that have been rejected repeatedly by scientific experts.

It is absurd to have to say this in 2025, but vaccines are safe and effective. That, of course, is not just my view. Far more important, it is the overwhelming consensus of the medical and scientific communities.

The American Academy of Pediatrics, the country’s largest professional association of pediatricians, representing over 67,000 doctors who treat our children every day, calls immunizations “one of the greatest public health achievements,” which prevents tens of thousands of deaths and millions of cases of disease.

The American Medical Association, the largest professional association of physicians and medical students, representing over 270,000 doctors along with 79 leading medical societies, recently said that vaccines for flu, R.S.V. and Covid-19 are “the best tools to protect the public against these illnesses and their potentially serious complications.”

The World Health Organization, an agency with some of the most prominent medical experts around the globe, recently noted that over the past 50 years, vaccines have saved at least 154 million lives and reduced the infant deaths by 40 percent.

Against the overwhelming body of evidence within the medicine and science, what are Secretary Kennedy’s views? He has claimed that autism is caused by vaccines, despite more than a dozen rigorous scientific studies involving hundreds of thousands of children that have found no connection between vaccines and autism.

He has called the Covid-19 vaccines the “deadliest” ever made despite findings cited by the W.H.O. that Covid shots saved over 14 million lives throughout the world in 2021 alone.

He has ridiculously questioned whether the polio vaccine has killed more people than polio itself did even though scientists have found that the vaccine has saved 1.5 million lives and prevented around 20 million people from becoming paralyzed since 1988.

He has absurdly claimed that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.”

Who supports Secretary Kennedy’s views? Not credible scientists and doctors. One of his leading “experts” that he cites to back up his bogus claims on autism and vaccines had his medical license revoked and his study retracted from the medical journal that published it.

Many of his supporters are from Children’s Health Defense — the anti-vaccine group he founded and profited from — and a small circle of loyalists that have spread misinformation and dangerous conspiracy theories on vaccines for years.

The reality is that Secretary Kennedy has profited from and built a career on sowing mistrust in vaccines. Now, as head of H.H.S., he is using his authority to launch a full-blown war on science, on public health and on truth itself.

What will this mean for the health and well-being of the American people?

Short term, it will be harder for Americans to get lifesaving vaccines. Already, the Trump administration has effectively taken away Covid vaccines from many healthy younger adults and kids, unless they fight their way through our broken health care system. This means more doctor’s visits, more bureaucracy and more people paying higher out-of-pocket costs — if they can manage to get a vaccine at all.

Covid is just the beginning. Mr. Kennedy’s next target may be the childhood immunization schedule, the list of recommended vaccines that children receive to protect them from diseases like measles, chickenpox and polio. The danger here is that diseases that have been virtually wiped out because of safe and effective vaccines will resurface and cause enormous harm.

Two years ago, when I was the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, I held a hearing with the major government officials responsible for protecting us from a new pandemic, including the head of the C.D.C. Without exception, every one of these agency heads said that, while they could not predict the exact date, there will be a future pandemic and we must be much better prepared for it than we are today.

Unfortunately, Secretary Kennedy’s actions are making a worrisome situation even worse by defunding the research that could help us prepare for the next pandemic. This month, he canceled nearly $500 million in research for the kinds of vaccines that helped us stop the Covid pandemic. At the same time, Mr. Kennedy is cutting funding to states to prepare and respond to future outbreaks of infectious diseases. This is unacceptable.

America’s health care system is already dysfunctional and wildly expensive, and yet the Trump administration will be throwing an estimated 15 million people off their health insurance through a cut of over $1 trillion to Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act. This cut is also expected to result in the closing of or the decline in services at hundreds of nursing homes, hospitals and community health centers. As a result of cuts to the Affordable Care Act, health insurance costs will soar for millions of Americans. That is not Making America Healthy Again.

Secretary Kennedy is putting Americans’ lives in danger, and he must resign. In his place, President Trump must listen to doctors and scientists and nominate a health secretary and a C.D.C. director who will protect the health and well-being of the American people, not carry out dangerous policies based on conspiracy theories."

Opinion | Bernie Sanders: Kennedy Must Resign - The New York Times

Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science - The New York Times

Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science

"Authoritarians have long feared and suppressed science as a rival for social influence. Experts see President Trump as borrowing some of their tactics.

Aug. 31, 2025

The 1633 trial of Galileo over his backing of the heliocentric theory came to symbolize the church’s hostility to open inquiry.Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

The 1633 trial of Galileo over his backing of the heliocentric theory came to symbolize the church’s hostility to open inquiry.Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

The war on science began four centuries ago when the Roman Catholic Church outlawed books that reimagined the heavens. Subsequent regimes shot or jailed thousands of scientists. Today, in such places as China and Hungary, a less fearsome type of strongman relies on budget cuts, intimidation and high-tech surveillance to cow scientists into submission.

Then there is President Trump, who voters last year decisively returned to the White House. His blitz on science stands out because America’s labs and their discoveries powered the nation’s rise in the last century and now foster its global influence.

Just last week, Mr. Trump fired the newly confirmed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Her lawyers said the move spoke to “the silencing of experts and the dangerous politicization of science.”

In rapid bursts, Mr. Trump has also laid off large teams of scientists, pulled the plug on thousands of research projects and proposed deep spending cuts for new studies. If his proposed $44 billion cut to next year’s budget is enacted, it will prompt the largest drop in federal support for science since World War II, when scientists and Washington began their partnership.

Few if any analysts see Mr. Trump as a Stalin, who crushed science, or even as a direct analog to this era’s strongmen leaders. But his assault on researchers and their institutions is so deep that historians and other experts see similarities to the playbook employed by autocratic regimes to curb science.

For instance, despots over the ages devised a lopsided way of funding science that punished blue-sky thinkers and promoted gadget makers. Mr. Trump’s science policies, experts say, follow that approach. He hails Silicon Valley’s wizards of tech but undermines the basic research that thrives on free thought and sows the seeds of not only Nobel Prizes but trillion-dollar industries.

“Despots want science that has practical results,” said Paul R. Josephson, an emeritus professor of history at Colby College and author of a book on totalitarian science. “They’re afraid that basic knowledge will expose their false claims.”

President Trump visiting the National Institutes of Health’s vaccine research center in Bethesda, Md., in March 2020.Doug Mills/The New York Times

The president’s backers deny any suggestion that he engages in autocratic moves or has autocratic ambitions.

Mr. Trump “is a threat to bureaucracy, not democracy,” said Paul Dans, the architect of Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for Mr. Trump’s presidency. “He has an extremely high regard for science.”

The ultimate target, according to the president and his supporters, is not science but rather the role experts play in generating the red tape that hobbles the nation’s economy and, they say, the research enterprise itself. They note that Project 2025 called for the dismantling of the administrative state.

Mr. Trump himself insists that, overall, he wants to save science. His defenders arguethat he is cutting bloated budgets to restore public trust in science and spark a golden age of discovery.

Defenders of the postwar order concede that federal science management can be improved. But the Trumpian cure is, they add, far worse than any disease. They dismiss his recent moves and pronouncements as little more than pretexts for what they see as repressive tactics inspired by contemporary autocrats.

“Trump did not invent this playbook,” said Thomas M. Countryman, a career diplomat for 36 years who served as assistant secretary of state for international security in the Obama administration. “It depends on the squelching of all independent centers of thought, and that includes universities, law firms and scientists.”

Analysts say authoritarians and their students fear science in part because its feats — unlocking the universe, ending plagues, saving millions of lives — can form bonds of public trust that rival or exceed their own.

“Science is a source of social power,” said Daniel Treisman, a political scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles. “It always poses a potential threat.”

Threatened or not, Mr. Trump has long scorned experts as overrated and has stated that he prefers to rely on common sense and gut instincts. “The experts are terrible,” he told the crowd at a 2016 rally in La Crosse, Wis. “Look at the mess we’re in with all these experts that we have.”

If analysts differ on the reasons for Mr. Trump’s attacks on science, they agree that his actions could affect America’s longstanding role as the world leader in scientific discovery — either strengthening it or, conceivably, ending it. Will the nation continue to set the global standard for science breakthroughs?

The lead times for science projects can run to years and decades, so the practical impacts of Mr. Trump’s actions will most likely become clear only after he leaves office. For the United States, a time of new uncertainty is expected.

A statue of Giordano Bruno in the Campo dei Fiori in Rome, where he was burned at the stake in 1600 for defending Copernicus’s theory of heliocentrism.Andreas Solaro/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

From the start, modern science faced repression. The backdrop was doctrine: The Roman Catholic Church long held that humans sat at the center of the universe as the stars, planets and sun moved overhead in never-ending tributes.

Not so, argued Nicolaus Copernicus, a Polish astronomer. In 1543, he laid out evidence showing that the Earth and planets revolve around the sun.

News of his book, 400 pages long and rich in diagrams, moved slowly across Europe. The church in time decided to show its displeasure. In 1600, it had Giordano Bruno, an advocate of Copernicus’s heliocentric theory, burned at the stake.

To fight the heresy, the church in 1616 put the Copernican tract on its list of prohibited books. Undeterred, Galileo, an Italian astronomer, in 1632 published his great work, “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems.” It backed Copernicus.

Galileo’s trial by the Roman Inquisition in 1633 was a turning point in Western history. The spectacle of the elderly thinker being forced, under threat of torture, to recant came to symbolize the church’s hostility to open inquiry.

Even so, Rome proceeded to adapt churches and cathedrals to serve as solar observatories, which let the church improve the calendar and better fix the date of Easter. The research also gave credence to the Copernican view. Nonetheless, Rome kept its heliocentric ban in place for centuries.

The Catholic Church’s double standard — crushing blue-sky science while enjoying the practical benefits — became a favorite tactic of monarchs, despots and modern autocrats. Today the two categories of exploratory work are known as basic and applied science. The latter can include development, engineering and technology. By nature, basic studies, though risky, tend to yield the most important discoveries.

The lopsided approach let rulers curb free thought that threatened their authority while promoting technological spinoffs of applied science that could empower their regimes. For instance, they backed research on celestial navigation, which let fleets of tall ships sail the globe to found colonial empires.

Even enlightened despots such as Catherine the Great in 18th-century Russia, while promoting science and progress, retained absolute power and suppressed ideas they saw as challenging their rule.

Trofim Lysenko, right, led Soviet biological studies between 1935 and 1965 and used his influence to reject modern genetics, with catastrophic results.Sovfoto/Universal Images Group, via Getty Images

The dictators of the 20th century turned the suppression of basic science and the promotion of applied research into superweapons of social control.

Upon taking power in 1933, Hitler redefined German science to include the idea that Aryans represent the master race. “If science cannot do without Jews,” he quipped, “we will have to do without science.” Hundreds of Jewish scientists were dismissed, and many fled the country.

Regime dogma guided the remaining scientists. The idea was that nationalistic science was the only true science. Before the war, Germany led the world in such triumphs of the intellect as relativity theory and quantum mechanics. Nazi science ended the blue-sky breakthroughs.

Even so, the regime’s tight grip on the German economy let it produce many innovations of applied science that empowered Hitler’s military, including V-2 rockets, jet engines, machine encryption and synthetic fuels.

The deadliest attacks on basic science came from Stalin, the Soviet dictator. In the 1930s, he had thousands of scientists shot or consigned to slave labor.

In addition, he echoed the Nazi push for ideological purity by elevating scientists who forcefully backed Marxism. Trofim Lysenko, an agronomist who dominated Soviet biological studies between 1935 and 1965, used his influence with Stalin to reject modern genetics as official policy. The results crippled Soviet agriculture and contributed to famines that killed millions of people.

Like other despots, Stalin also backed applied science for regime building. The results included the atom bomb and Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite.

The New Authoritarians

A handout photograph released by the Hungarian prime minister’s office in July 2024 showing Prime Minister Viktor Orban with Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla.via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In this century, a new kind of ruler arose. Gone were the gulags and the firing squads. The new autocrats, forsaking military garb for designer suits, relied on subtle threats, budget cuts and high-tech surveillance to curb science.

Dr. Treisman, the U.C.L.A. professor, joined with Sergei Guriev, dean of the London Business School, to write a 2023 book on the new generation. “Spin Dictators” argues that the media-savvy strongmen have recast authoritarian rule for the digital age.

“They don’t want to be controlled by scientists,” Dr. Treisman said. “They want to control them.”

He noted that the new authoritarians, like the old, rely on applied science to bolster the legitimacy of their regimes.

“Dictators need it to fuel economic growth, to make satellites and missiles, to obtain new surveillance technologies,” he said. “They want their own science, not someone else’s. They don’t want to be lectured by liberals on inconvenient truths about the environment or health care.”

The book’s case studies look at leaders like Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, Xi Jinping of China, Vladimir Putin of Russia and Viktor Orban of Hungary.

Mr. Trump and his backers “do occasionally let slip their view of things — that these regimes are not that bad,” said Dr. Josephson of Colby College, whose own book on totalitarian science details many of the crackdowns.

In Brazil, Mr. Bolsonaro, as president from 2019 to 2023, slashed the federal research budget, throwing thousands of scientists into limbo.

In China, Mr. Xi’s rise to power in 2012 led to online censors, televised confessions and the repression of restive populations, such as the Uyghurs. His science investmentsput applied over basic studies: In a recent report, China ranked last globally in the funding of basic research, lagging behind not only the United States but such comparatively small countries as Israel, Switzerland and Taiwan.

In Russia, Mr. Putin, who first assumed the presidency in 2000, has created what experts consider a police state in which agents falsely arrest scientists on charges of treason and closely monitor their contacts with foreigners. The climate of fear encourages self-censorship. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to a mass exodusof scientists.

At the same time, Moscow has used applied science as a stealthy weapon of social control. New tools of digital surveillance aided its crackdowns on the war’s opponents.

In Hungary, Mr. Orban since 2010 has worked to undo free thought and institutional autonomy, typically through intermediaries. In 2018, he had gender studies removedfrom the country’s list of accredited subjects. The next year, he seized control of the 40 research institutes of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In 2021, he took over 11 universities.

Mr. Trump befriended Mr. Orban. Three times during the year of his successful campaign to return to the White House — in March, July and December — he hosted Mr. Orban at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

On social media, Mr. Trump praised him as “a smart, strong, and compassionate leader of a wonderful Country, Hungary. Great job, Viktor!!!”

The Trump Blitz

The Stand Up for Science rally in Washington in March.Eric Lee/The New York Times

In his first term as president, Mr. Trump sought to crush federal science. But Congress often reversed his proposed funding cuts.

In his second term, Mr. Trump’s first target was expert guidance.

Over decades, federal laws gave scientific advisory bodies the power to overseeregulatory agencies, and such oversight slowly spread to the government as a whole. In essence, science and Washington became administrative allies.

On Feb. 19, weeks after taking office, Mr. Trump signed an executive order that called for the downsizing and elimination of the advisory panels. The order affected panels that oversaw vaccines, astrophysics, fisheries, mathematics, space, the geosciences, the environment and artificial intelligence.

Next, in March, amid budget cuts and growing protests by scientists, Mr. Trump unveiled an overall science policy that echoed the autocrats in emphasizing technological spinoffs, such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. In a public letter, the president called for securing the nation’s status “as the unrivaled world leader in critical and emerging technologies.”

Then in May, the administration made public its proposed cuts to next year’s federal science budget. Independent experts found that the category of basic research would fall to $30 billion from $45 billion, a drop of roughly 34 percent.

On the chopping block were studies focused on nursing, clean energy, climate change, air and water quality, chemical safety, minority health disparities, green aviation, the global carbon cycle, the atmosphere of Mars, the planet Jupiter, and the boundary in outer space where the solar system meets the cosmos, among other subjects.

“The cuts are justified,” said Terence Kealey, a scholar at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. Decades of lavish funding have dulled America’s exploratory edge, he argued.

Finally, later in May, Mr. Trump laid out his reform agenda. It called for a “gold standard” that would revitalize science research. But critics, including Nobel laureates, saw it as paving the way for state-controlled science.

Officially, the job of defending Mr. Trump’s agenda falls to his science adviser, Michael Kratsios. He has no degrees in science or engineering but held key technology and military posts during Mr. Trump’s first term and helped speed the rise of artificial intelligence.

Michael Kratsios, now the president’s science adviser, in 2019. In Mr. Trump’s first term, he served as chief technology officer of the United States.Miguel A. Lopes/EPA, via Shutterstock

Over weeks, multiple requests for an interview with Mr. Kratsios were made to officials in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Possible dates were discussed, but Mr. Kratsios was never made available.

In the end, his office issued a brief statement that hailed Mr. Trump for “reinvigorating a system in which diminishing returns and stagnation have been the status quo for decades.”

Critics see Mr. Trump’s backers either as blind to the ubiquity of the authoritarian parallels and playbook or as trying to give the White House political cover.

In a recent essay, Dr. Josephson of Colby College cast Mr. Trump’s acts as brazenly totalitarian. He cited the firing of thousands of scientists, the support of anti-vaccine propaganda, and the elevation of unqualified officials to science management.

“Trump once said he wanted the generals that Hitler had,” Dr. Josephson wrote. “He’s certainly working on getting the science that Hitler and Stalin had.”

Dr. Treisman of U.C.L.A. said that despite Mr. Trump’s war on science and the federal bureaucracy, he saw reason for hope.

He said democracies often have “politicians like Trump who would like to remove all constraints on their power. The difference between them and successful ones like Mr. Orban isn’t so much in their approach but in the level of resistance they encounter.”

Dr. Treisman said the critics of Mr. Trump might prevail. His own belief, he added, “is that the many forces of civil society will continue to constrain him.”

William J. Broad has reported on science at The Times since 1983. He is based in New York."

Historians See Autocratic Playbook in Trump’s Attacks on Science - The New York Times