The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

The Trump administration is dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado—one of the world’s premier climate research institutions—because nothing says “great again” like shuttering the lab that studies the thing currently cooking your country. Office of Management and Budget ghoul Russell Vought announced the execution on X, calling NCAR “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism,” which is a fun way of saying “they keep accurately describing reality and that’s bad for our donors.”

Vought, the Project 2025 architect of America’s new climate Lysenkoism, has been trying to zero out climate research across government, from NOAA to other federal labs, so that oil and gas companies—who conveniently dropped at least $75 million into Trump’s campaign—never again have to worry about pesky concepts like “evidence” or “human survival.” Meanwhile, Trump’s Department of Energy put out a propaganda report pretending greenhouse gases aren’t a problem, which was obliterated by more than 85 climate scientists and contradicted by the National Academy of Sciences, so now EPA is expected to just drop the science part altogether and go full vibes on overturning the endangerment finding.

In other words, we’ve reached the “Stalin, but for Exxon” phase of the Trump project: purge the scientists, destroy the data, and replace decades of peer-reviewed research with whatever the former Liberty Energy CEO and a handful of handpicked cranks can scribble down between industry meetings. Climate researchers are losing jobs, participation at major scientific conferences is collapsing, and the administration is proudly turning the ransacking of the library of Alexandria into a policy model. But sure, tell us more about how this is all about “energy dominance” and not just a fossil-fueled bonfire of the future.

The White House has decided that if you can't argue with the science, you just smash the lab. Budget director and professional theocrat Russ Vought jumped on X to announce a plan to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, calling it "one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country"—because nothing says "sound public policy" like nuking the people who make your weather forecasts work.

NCAR has spent more than 60 years helping universities understand global weather, water, and climate, which is apparently now a firing offense in Trump's America. Its leadership says they got zero advance notice and that the move is "entirely political". They're right: the administration insists "vital" weather work will be shipped somewhere else, as if you can just put world-class atmospheric science in a cardboard box and mail it to Mar-a-Lago.

Colorado officials are pointing out the obvious: this looks a lot like retaliation. Gov. Jared Polis says the plan "puts public safety at risk and attacks science," while Sen. Michael Bennet and Rep. Joe Neguse note the timing—coming right after Colorado refused to spring MAGA folk hero Tina Peters, the county clerk who illegally accessed voting machines after the 2020 election and is now doing nine years for it. Trump issued her a symbolic pardon (because federalism is hard), and when that didn’t work, the White House apparently reached for Plan B: threaten to blow up one of the country's premier climate and weather centers.

In other words, the guy who once took a Sharpie to a hurricane map is now trying to take a wrecking ball to the people who make the maps in the first place—both to punish a state that locked up his election-tampering fan and to silence "alarmism" about the planet catching fire. But sure, this is all just normal governance and definitely not an administration using federal power to settle scores and blindfold the country in the middle of a climate crisis.

The FDA just recalled more than 3,500 cases of salad dressing because they were helpfully fortified with “black plastic planting material” in the granulated onion. In other words, your ranch was one supply-chain hiccup away from becoming a Home Depot clearance bin. Ventura Foods made the stuff, Hidden Valley’s name is on some of it, and the government has labeled it a “class II” recall, meaning the health effects are supposed to be only temporary and medically reversible — which is a fun way of saying, “You probably won’t die, but your Caesar might fight back.”

The contamination hit giant one-gallon food-service jugs shipped all over the country, including to Costco and deli counters in at least 30 states, plus one lucky customer in Costa Rica, because nothing says American soft power like exporting our plastic problem in salad form. Hidden Valley rushed out to clarify that consumers buying normal bottles in stores are totally fine, and that the recalled professional buttermilk ranch was “never distributed,” which is exactly the kind of statement you hear right before another recall notice drops six weeks later.

Meanwhile, the FDA advises anyone who somehow ended up with this stuff not to eat it and to take it back for a refund — assuming you can even tell which ready-to-eat deli meals were slathered in “farm-to-landfill” ranch. But sure, let’s keep pretending the real threat to America’s health is drag brunch and not a food system where your salad dressing shows up with bonus landscaping supplies.

The Trump administration has decided the best way to deal with worsening fires, floods, and hurricanes is to defund the people who predict them. Russell Vought, still cosplaying as a budget hawk on X, proudly announced that the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder — a globally respected “crown jewel” of climate and weather science — will be dismantled for the crime of “climate alarmism.” Because nothing says “serious governing” like nuking your top atmospheric research lab while megafires and 1,000-year floods show up every six months.

Vought helpfully clarified that any “vital activities” like weather research would be moved somewhere else, which is bureaucrat-speak for “we’ll hand this to some loyal hack who thinks a supercomputer is when Trump remembers two talking points in a row.” The Mesa Laboratory will be shut, 830 staff thrown into chaos, and the NCAR-run supercomputing facility and research aircraft shoved into whatever political shredder passes for policy review in this White House.

Even conservative climate policy guy Roger Pielke Jr is out here saying NCAR is a “crown jewel” that should be improved, not shuttered — in other words, it’s so obviously stupid and petty that even the usual ‘both-sides’ crowd can’t spin it. Colorado governor Jared Polis noted that NCAR’s work on fires, floods, and severe weather literally helps save lives and property, but sure, let’s call it “woke” and pull the plug because one of their programs tries to make science more inclusive and they study wind turbines, Trump’s personal windmill-tilting obsession.

This all slots neatly into Trump’s ongoing crusade against reality: climate change is a “hoax,” NOAA gets a proposed 30% budget chainsaw, and any lab that produces inconvenient data gets labeled “green new scam research.” The message is clear: if your models show rising seas and stronger hurricanes, this administration will rise up to meet the challenge by destroying your funding, your lab, and probably your server farm. But hey, at least the billionaires building beachfront bunkers will get a tax cut.

Trump, flanked by nuclear industry executives in the Oval Office, has discovered a new thing that’s being mildly inconvenienced by safety regulations and therefore must be destroyed: the rules that keep nuclear reactors from turning into very expensive, very glowing craters. CEOs pitched him on a future of mass-produced small modular reactors, and Trump — a man whose construction legacy includes bankrupt casinos and collapsing Atlantic City real estate — was praised as “the best at building things.” Because nothing says long-term nuclear safety like the guy who couldn’t keep a steak brand alive.

The problem, Constellation Energy CEO Joseph Dominguez explained, is that pesky safety reviews and permitting delays “kill you” because you can’t get the plant online and start printing money. And like clockwork, Trump’s new executive order is aimed at speeding up approvals for reactors across the country, i.e., telling regulators to stop harshing the industry’s radioactive buzz. In other words: if the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could just stop doing all that regulating, we could really get this fission party started.

So billions in private capital are now chasing experimental designs while the White House’s main concern is not “will this melt down?” but “will this cash flow fast enough?” The administration is selling it as innovation and clean energy, but the actual plan seems to be: hand the keys to companies whose top complaint about nuclear power is that there’s still too much nuclear safety in it. But sure, what could possibly go wrong when you combine advanced reactors, deregulation, and a president whose guiding philosophy is that any rule that slows a grift is tyranny?