{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.murray.senate.gov/murray-on-trump-admin-scrapping-plans-for-executive-order-to-empower-russ-vought-to-kill-nih-research/", "Murray on Trump Admin Scrapping Plans for Executive Order to Empower Russ Vought to Kill NIH Research", "2026-09-23", "2026", "2026-09", "Democrat", "Senate", "WA", "Patty Murray", "M001111", "www.murray.senate.gov", "murray", "https://www.murray.senate.gov/category/press-releases/", "scraper", "ICYMI: Senator Murray on Trump\u2019s Latest Plan to Politicize Lifesaving NIH Research\n\nWashington, D.C. \u2014 Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement on news breaking today that plans to issue an executive order to establish an external review committee empowered to veto National Institutes of Health (NIH) awards are being scrapped.\n\n\u201cIt shouldn\u2019t take public outcry to prevent President Trump and Russ Vought from laying waste to the NIH and defunding lifesaving research because they think it\u2019s \u2018woke\u2019 or want to extort a university. This president is on a mission to shred patients and families\u2019 hopes for new treatments and cures.\n\n\u201cWhile this specific scheme may now be on ice, make no mistake: President Trump and Russ Vought are already playing politics with lifesaving NIH funding and will continue to do so, with or without a new Executive Order. What\u2019s sorely needed are more protections in law to actually put an end to that\u2014to stop funding and staffing cuts, prevent political appointees from meddling in decisions about lifesaving research, and ensure grantmaking is guided only by what gives us the best chance at the next medical breakthrough. I\u2019ve been pushing to do much more in our spending laws, but we need Republicans to finally agree to put real checks on President Trump and Russ Vought.\u201d\n\nSenator Murray has raised alarms and fought back against this administration\u2019s nonstop efforts to politicize, cut, and defund all manner of lifesaving medical research\u2014including by pushing for new guardrails in the HHS spending law. She and her Democratic colleagues in Congress also successfully fought to secure language in the recently enacted continuing resolution (CR) to block the Office of Management and Budget\u2019s (OMB) attempt to politicize every aspect of the federal grantmaking process.\n\n###", 1, "2026-09-24T09:44:48Z", "2026-09-24T09:45:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.murray.senate.gov/murray-on-trump-admin-scrapping-plans-for-executive-order-to-empower-russ-vought-to-kill-nih-research/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9497641585767269, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}