Today’s notice: What Trump cut at Columbia. What DOGE cuts mean for non-English speakers. China vs. domestic politics. What’s next for ActBlue?
DOGE Targets Cancer Research
Last week, Donald Trump’s administration terminated hundreds of grants supporting research at Columbia University over the school’s handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations. Neither the White House nor Columbia would say which grants were cut. But that didn’t stop us from finding them.
NOTUS identified dozens of grants the administration terminated last week using data posted by the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Government Efficiency. One of the axed grants, worth $5 million, supported the campus’ Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center. Others supported research on Alzheimer’s, HIV, maternal health, cardiovascular disease and other programs tied to the university.
The day those cuts were implemented, the exact dollar figure for each of those grants and hundreds more were added to the DOGE website’s “savings” page. We asked the White House if it considered those research programs examples of the waste, fraud or abuse it has said it is targeting. It didn’t get back to us.
The cuts are part of a broad, multi-agency effort to strong-arm Columbia into making changes dictated by the White House. The administration says the university must acquiesce to its demands by the end of Wednesday before it even thinks about getting uninterrupted federal funding. Those stipulations include the “expulsion or multi-year suspension” of students who participated in encampments during the protests and a ban on mask-wearing with exceptions.
Also on this administration’s chopping block: at least 10 contracts that provided federal agencies with services for non-English speakers. DOGE cut “translation, interpretation and language-specialist services,” NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak and Helen Huiskes report.
Language-access advocates and Democratic lawmakers said the cuts would come at the expense of those who routinely rely on such materials, and warned that the White House is only poised to make more.
“People are not going to be able to access resources that they’re paying into and they deserve,” Rep. Delia Ramirez told NOTUS.
Read the story about Columbia’s cut grants. | Read the story about translation contracts.
The Incredible Shrinking House Fight With China
The House’s select committee on competition with China is hitting different in Trump 2.0, NOTUS’ Haley Byrd Wilt reports. A longtime GOP policy hand tells her that while Republicans on the panel used it “to drive the Biden administration into a harder-line posture on a range of things,” the “outstanding question is whether or not they’re going to give the same kind of treatment to this administration.”
The question is not outstanding for Democrats on the panel; they have seen enough. “There seems to be a lack of energy and momentum on the committee in general,” Rep. Seth Moulton told Haley.
An example of how things have changed to fit Trump’s priorities: Haley watched all 19 minutes of the select committee’s slick new video touting its accomplishments. Not mentioned: “the panel’s signature legislative achievement” — the law that aimed to ban TikTok.
Front Page
- Secretary Scott Turner Wants to Move the Housing Department’s Headquarters: In an interview with Fox News, Turner called the agency “the ugliest building in D.C.”
- Republicans See a Chance to Win in California — Maybe With Ric Grenell: The Trump official has said he might run for governor if Kamala Harris does.
Quotable: Don’t Rush to Sign On to the Autopen Theory
“… the sort of middle-of-the-night tweet that Trump’s subordinates shouldn’t take seriously.”
Mark Tushnet of Harvard Law School to NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery, dismissing Trump’s embrace of a theory in which he claimed that former President Joe Biden’s use of an “autopen” to sign pardons makes them unofficial.
ActBlue’s Act Two
Democratic fundraising behemoth ActBlue remains under pressure in the Republican House, as late last week, Rep. Andy Biggs demanded that the FBI investigate allegations that the organization “has been used to skirt the integrity of federal campaign finance laws.”
We also noticed that ActBlue has parted ways with law firm Covington & Burling just six months after the firm registered to lobby against GOP Rep. Bryan Steil’s bill to prohibit online political donations without a card verification value and billing address. (Steil plans to reintroduce the bill this Congress, per a source familiar.)
The firm sent a three-page letter in February in response to GOP inquiries to “provide an update regarding ActBlue’s security, fraud prevention measures and related procedures,” according to The New York Times. The termination filing was dated March 7, two days after The Times story was published, and did not disclose any activity during the first quarter, which raised questions.
ActBlue, Covington & Burling and Matthew Shapanka, the lobbyist on the account, did not respond to requests for comment.
—Taylor Giorno
Not Us
We know NOTUS reporters can’t cover it all. Here’s some other great hits by … not us.
- Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them To Scrub mRNA References on Grants by Arthur Allen for KFF Health News
- A Pentagon Nomination Fight Reveals the New Rules of Trump’s Washington by Greg Jaffe for The New York Times
- The Battle for the Bros by Andrew Marantz for The New Yorker
Be Social
Not that funny, but then again, neither is the panicked $90 Uber ride you’re in for when this happens.
"You're at the wrong airport" https://t.co/nOnXPVU6Qf
— Dulles Airport (IAD) (@Dulles_Airport) March 17, 2025
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