Baldwin Blasts Trump Admin for Diverting Billions from Lifesaving Medical Research to Pentagon

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee that funds the National Institute of Health (NIH), blasted the Trump Administration after the Department of Defense (DOD) announced that it was diverting billions of dollars Congress specifically provided for lifesaving medical research at NIH to fund Pentagon priorities instead. “Donald Trump’s illegal war of choice in Iran is costing Americans billions of dollars in taxpayer funding and higher costs, and now he is raiding lifesaving medical research to find even more money for his out-of-control Department of Defense,” said Senator Baldwin. “The American people want cures to diseases that are causing heartache – not backdoor deals that rob them of hope and instead use their tax dollars for Secretary Hegseth’s pet projects. I will fight this decision at every step – and I expect to hear the same outrage from my Republican colleagues.” The new agreement, which was not shared with Congress in advance, establishes a framework that could allow DOD to tap billions of dollars that Congress provided specifically for NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in order to fund DOD initiatives instead. The arrangement could mean that a substantial portion of NIAID’s overall budget is not spent on NIAID programs, but Pentagon priorities, which should be considered through the bipartisan annual appropriations process. Since the start of 2025, the Trump Administration has repeatedly attacked or frozen funding for NIH and the lifesaving research it supports. Despite Senator Baldwin working to increase NIH’s budget by $415 million for Fiscal Year 2026, the White House delayed getting that money out the door and left NIH unable to fund research for 40 days. This slow walking, combined with staffing cuts and Trump’s multi-year funding scheme, means that NIH will award thousands fewer research grants this year; the fewest research grants it has awarded any year since 2017. ###