Politics v. science: How President Trump's war on science impacted public health and environmental regulation

During his campaign for president, Joe Biden vowed to “end the politics and follow the science” when dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health and environmental crises. He was immediately criticized by then President Trump, who cast “listen[ing] to the scientists” as something only a fool would do, and warned that it would result in a “massive [economic] depression.” It is hardly surprising that Trump would take that position. After all, the Trump administration routinely prioritized economic interests, and worked tirelessly to remove what it viewed as unnecessary regulatory burdens on economic activity. The Trump administration regularly suppressed, downplayed, or simply ignored scientific research demonstrating the need for regulation to protect public health and the environment. The Biden administration has vowed to reverse course, but faces challenges in doing so due to the widespread assault on science led by former President Trump. The Trump administration's efforts to undermine science are documented in the Silencing Science Tracker, an online database, which records anti-science actions taken by the federal, state, and local governments. Drawing on more than four years of tracker data—from Trump's election to Biden's inauguration—we show that the Trump presidency fundamentally changed how federal government agencies perform, use, and communicate scientific research. While the Biden administration has taken initial steps to undo some of those changes, it still has significant work to do to restore the role of science in federal government decision-making. Its task is made more difficult by the public distrust of science engendered by the Trump presidency.