White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition
A planned executive order would have increased political oversight of research funding.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Photograph: (top)Cezary p(bottom)MattWade via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
What this story says
- The White House has dropped plans for an executive order that would have increased political control over NIH research grants.
- Bipartisan opposition, including from Senator Susan Collins, led to the plan being abandoned.
- The NIH disburses approximately $48 billion annually to research institutions.
- No executive order has been issued regarding the NIH grant process.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 7 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. 2 of the 9 outlets we know ran this story carry no rating and are not counted in them. Coverage measured .
Trust
76/100
Craft
75/100
Hype
15/100
9 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
None of the 7 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
The White House has halted a planned executive order that would have given political appointees greater control over biomedical research grants awarded by the National Institutes of Health. The initiative faced bipartisan opposition, leading to its discontinuation. No executive order has been issued.
Disagreement on the plan's details
Roll Call reported that the executive order would have given the Trump administration more control over grantmaking at the NIH. Semafor suggested the proposal would have given President Donald Trump greater influence over health grant decisionmaking, adding that the plan could still advance in a new form. Allergy & Asthma Network reported that the White House intended to establish an outside panel to review research grants prior to approval.
What the coverage left out
None of the left- or centre-rated reports mentioned the National Institutes of Health disburses about $48 billion annually to research labs and academic investigators, a fact reported by BizToc.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 4 times, most recently on 24 Sept 2026, 11:45, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
3 rated outlets
- Reports from the left focused on the White House backing down from its plan. Politico stated the White House halted a planned executive order that would have put control over NIH research grants in the hands of political appointees. Semafor reported the Trump administration was backing off the NIH grant order amid pushback, noting the proposal could still advance in a new form. Bloomberg Government, via bgov.com, reported the White House was dropping plans to give its budget office more oversight of scientific research grants, citing Republican Senator Susan Collins.
Centre
4 rated outlets
- Centrist reports highlighted the bipartisan opposition that led to the plan's demise. STAT reported the White House plan to control NIH biomedical research grants appeared dead after bipartisan opposition led by Senator Susan Collins. The Hill stated the White House backed down on a plan to grant its office control over NIH scientific awards following pressure, according to Senator Susan Collins. Roll Call reported the White House was scrapping plans for an executive order that would have given the Trump administration more control over grantmaking at the National Institutes of Health. Medical Daily reported that senators from both parties opposed a reported plan for political appointees to approve NIH grants, noting no order had been issued.
Right
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated right has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition?
- Of the 7 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 43% are rated left, 57% are rated centre, 0% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it, which was 9. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 7 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition biased?
- White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition is one event reported by 9 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered White House drops NIH grant control plan after bipartisan opposition?
- 9 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- What was the White House planning to do with NIH grants?
- The White House had planned an executive order that would have increased political control over the National Institutes of Health's biomedical research grants. This would have involved giving political appointees more say in the approval process for these research funds.
- Why did the White House drop the plan?
- The plan was dropped due to bipartisan opposition from senators. Senator Susan Collins was identified as leading this opposition, which pressured the White House to abandon the executive order.
- How much money does the NIH distribute annually?
- The National Institutes of Health disburses approximately $48 billion each year. This funding goes to research labs and academic investigators for various health-related studies.
Read it at the source
9 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
3Centre
4- White House plan to increase control of NIH grants appears 'dead' (opens STAT in a new tab)
- Collins: White House backing down from NIH grant order (opens The Hill in a new tab)
- White House drops executive order for tighter NIH purview (opens Roll Call in a new tab)
- Senators from Both Parties Push Back on Reported Plan for Political Appointees to Approve NIH Grants (opens Medical Daily in a new tab)
Medical Daily — is Medical Daily biased? Our profile of this outlet
Right
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Not rated
2How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
