Dr. Francis Collins Led the NIH. Now, He Fears for the Future of Science
Dr. Francis Collins, former director of the National Institutes of Health, at the Stand Up for Science 2025 rally at the Lincoln Memorial on March 7, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit - Alex Wong—Getty Images
Dr. Francis Collins led the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), the world's largest funder of biomedical research, under three presidents—including Trump during his first term. He left that post in 2021 and retired from his career in government in March 2025.
Collins shared with TIME why actions taken by the Trump Administration have made him deeply concerned about the future of scientific research in the U.S., and what he hopes new leadership and the public will do to combat it.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
It's hard to answer that question in a simple way in the midst of everything that's going on now. Here I am as a private citizen trying to figure out what my next calling should be.
I had served by then three different presidents—Obama, Trump, and Biden—over the course of 12 years, which was a new record for a presidentially appointed NIH director. It always seemed to me that it's good to have leadership refreshed on a regular basis for organizations that have a very complex and important mission [like NIH}. So, it did seem to me that it would be a good thing for me to step away and let the president pick another leader going forward.
I stayed on longer than I probably otherwise would have because of COVID and the desire to have continuity during the worst pandemic in more than a century, with all the things that needed to happen with medical research. But by late 2021, while COVID was far from over, the organization of the response efforts for vaccines and therapeutics and diagnostics were in a stable place, and I thought it would be fair to step away and let a new person arrive.
I've been increasingly concerned about the polarization of our society, and that goes back even before COVID. But COVID brought it out in a particularly troubling way, where information that might have been lifesaving, such as the use of the vaccines, did not always land with people who had already been influenced by lots of other misinformation, or even disinformation, coming from social media, cable news, and sometimes politicians. So when I stepped down as NIH director, I began the effort to try to put together a book called The Road to Wisdom. It focuses particularly on the topic of truth: that there really is such a thing as objective truth. A society that decides truth is just how you feel about it, and that alternative facts are okay, is heading into a very dangerous place. And it feels like that's sort of where we are.
Read More: A Pill to Prevent COVID-19 Shows Promise
Now, we see that kind of attitude spilling over into people's response in general to institutions, and certainly to science. It worries me greatly now, seeing how that has played out in the last couple of months, in terms of drastic actions that are being taken against the federal support of science, with cuts in the [research support NIH provides], with firings of thousands of scientists including more than a thousand at NIH without really much consideration of what the consequences would be.
I felt I needed to be part of speaking out about why this is, for the average American, not a good idea. I was particularly compelled by the Stand Up for Science effort since it was organized by students. They had the courage, and also the deep concern about whether their futures are now in jeopardy. They are deeply troubled about whether that opportunity might be slipping away on the basis of all the changes that are being put forward. And some of those students are even wondering if they need to leave this country to go to another place to be able to live out their dreams. That's just an unprecedented kind of circumstance that seemed to require some reaction.
The idea that NIH's funding of research on bat viruses in China led directly to COVID is simply not supported by the facts. Yes, NIH was interested in whether there might be viruses emerging in Chinese bats, because that's how MERS and SARS got started. But the bat coronaviruses that were studied by NIH contract research were far away from SARS-CoV-2 in their genome sequences—about the same level of similarity as a cow and a human.
The possibility that SARS-CoV-2 might have been created from scratch in a lab was initially considered quite seriously by the virus experts, but they ultimately concluded this is simply not consistent with its genome sequence.
Read More: What Leaving the WHO Means for the U.S. and the World
There continues to be speculation, however, that the naturally occurring virus might have been secretly under study in the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and somehow escaped. There is no concrete evidence to support this, but the Chinese government has stonewalled efforts to examine lab notebooks or other materials that might shed light on what really happened. So this 'lab leak' possibility has to be considered—but the simplest synthesis of the current data is that a naturally occurring virus spread from bats to an intermediate host, possibly a raccoon dog, and then infected humans in the west corner of the Huanan market, where wild animals were being butchered.
Unfortunately this topic of COVID origins has become a contentious and hyperpartisan issue, leading to further polarization of our divided country and to scapegoating and threatening of scientists. I would urge interested people to look closely at the actual facts.
The second administration arrived with a very detailed plan already in hand, and they proceeded to implement that plan in a breathtakingly rapid series of policies and Executive Orders. In just two months, more dramatic changes have been made in science and medical research than anybody can remember. The first Trump administration had some of these same ideas, but there was more time for discussion, and more time to consider what the consequences might be. This time, the policies, including cutting funding and firing scientists, are being implemented very quickly, unfortunately without sufficient consideration of the harms that are being done. Medical research institutions across the country are in crisis.
I am quite concerned. If you're an American who cares about health for yourself and for your family, and if you also care about our chances to give young people an opportunity to do amazing things in their scientific careers, and if you care about giving young people a chance at a scientific career, and if you care about how science and technology have been the main support of the U.S. economy since World War II, then taking a hammer to this amazing life-saving enterprise should concern you.
[The pace of scientific progress] has profoundly slowed down already. Will it be recoverable with some adjustments, and maybe some rollbacks of the worst of the sledgehammer blows that have been struck so far?
The approach to cure rare diseases with gene therapies is something that I have been very involved in. We're talking about 7,000 diseases that are now potentially on the pathway toward a genetic cure, especially using the CRISPR [gene editing] approach. My own lab is working on this approach for progeria [a rare genetic condition that causes children to age prematurely]. It is interesting and troubling to look at the reaction to what's happened in just the last two months; a lot of the young scientists who were potentially interested in that field now aren't quite so sure.
Read More: The Power and Potential of Gene Tuning
In China, the approach of CRISPR-based gene editing therapy for rare diseases has been identified as one of their highest priorities, and they are now already at the point of starting to run more clinical trials than the U.S. For those people who maybe are less impressed by the human impact of a slowdown in medical research, we also ought to think about what this means economically for the future of our nation, particularly with our most important competitor, China. Are we handing them leadership in an area, namely medical research, where the U.S. has led the world for decades? Is that really a good idea?
Students don't have a lot of power and they're aware of that. What they can do, and what they did in organizing Stand Up for Science, is to try to communicate their perspective, their sense of alarm, their recognition that something serious is happening to the country...and their willingness to identify voices that maybe can be even more powerful than their own, like those of patients.
I've been calling for a "science communication core," where we enlist all of the science majors in colleges and universities, all of the high-school science teachers, all of the members of scientific societies, and give them the assignment to be communicators of what science is and what it can accomplish in a realistic, community-based way. We have a long way to go to actually convince a lot of Americans about just how important science is for our future.
I'm very worried about that. Every survey that's been done shows a significant drop in public trust of scientists. Some of that, I have to admit, relates to the circumstances that happened during COVID. I've been very public about my concerns that our communication strategy had flaws in terms of trying to share information with people about what to do to protect yourself against the virus.
I wish every time those recommendations had been made, there would have been a preamble saying, "There's a lot we don't know about the virus—we are trying to learn as fast as we can, but we're missing pieces—big ones. That means what we tell you today about a mask or about social distancing or vaccines or therapeutics might turn out to be wrong in another month or two when we have more data. Don't be surprised if that's the case. But please don't imagine that we're trying to jerk you around. We are doing the best we can with very imperfect data at a time of crisis."
Read More: The Pandemic Turns 5. We Are Still Not Prepared for the Next One
We didn't say that often enough. So when recommendations were made, people assumed that those were rock-solid, and then, when they had to change those a month or two later—when you found out, for instance, that asymptomatic people were likely to be spreaders of the virus—then people thought, "These people don't know what they're talking about." And so we lost confidence along the way.
I will apologize for some of the things that we as scientists didn't do. I wish some of the people on the side, who were distributing malevolent information that was known not to be true about the pandemic, would apologize for their role. Where are the apologies for that behavior?
The Great Barrington Declaration was released in October 2020, before we had vaccines or even knew that they would work. The document suggested that it would be better to let people who were not senior citizens go about their daily life without restrictions. That would help the economy and the educational system. Many more people would get infected, but this would assist the development of herd immunity.
This would have been an interesting topic for a scientific discussion, but it was put forward as a policy document and presented to the Secretary of Health and Human Services the day after it was released. Any opportunity for scientific discussion was skipped, and the proposal seemed to be on the path toward a potential major policy change as the pandemic was raging. That was alarming to many of us.
Almost every single public health organization published highly critical statements—the Secretary General of the World Health Organization and the scientific leadership in the U.K. also strongly objected. We know that about 30% of the people who died of COVID were under 65, so there would likely have been significantly increased casualties. Furthermore, it was never clear how you would sequester the older people so that somehow they were not exposed to the virus; people tend to live in families, after all. So the proposed plan seemed both impractical and dangerous.
Pull NIH out of any kind of partisan situation. Traditionally, over all these decades, [NIH] has been supported by both parties in both chambers with enthusiasm for what it can do for health and for saving lives. Right now, almost everything seems to be partisan. So if Dr. Bhattacharya can help return to that non-political status, that would be a really good thing.
Mix politics and science, you get politics. You kind of lose everything else. And that's unfortunately a little bit where things are right now.
And then surround yourself with people who are as smart as they can be, and who are fearless in their willingness to tell you their opinions even if it might not be something you want to hear. The best thing a leader can do is to give permission to the people around them to say, "You're about to do the wrong thing." It wasn't always easy to hear that, but it was important to have that permission granted.
And take advantage of the brain trust that you have access to as the NIH director. Use that connectivity. As somebody once said, "My own brain is limited, so I have to borrow all the brains I can from other people in order to make the boldest decision."
You do feel like you've got to watch around yourself a little more carefully. Because it's not incredibly unusual to have someone—as happened right before the beginning of the Stand Up for Science event—come forward very aggressively with statements that were quite threatening and quite wrong in terms of their assumptions about COVID and whatever role I played.
Read More: What to Know About Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump's Pick to Lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
It does make you feel unsafe. I haven't yet reached the point…of having 24-hour security guards. And I hope I don't have to. That's incredibly disruptive of one's life and I couldn't possibly afford it anyway. But it does give me concern. I can't let that be a reason to go hide under my desk. That's just not an appropriate response. But some of the messages are frightening and certainly very hurtful.
Actually, the [messages] that I find hardest to read are written to me by fellow Christians. I'm very open about my Christian faith. It's the rock I stand on. It's who I am. It's who I have been since I converted to Christianity at age 27. If I'm lost in a circumstance and don't know what to do, I'm likely to go to prayer or to the Bible to try to seek out some kind of insight or some path towards wisdom. And yet I will get emails from people who say, "You are a fake Christian. You can't possibly be really a follower of Jesus if you have done the following. If you had any Christian credibility at all, you would confess your sins and tell everybody that you repent of your evilness.' And some of them say I should just basically be in jail and maybe executed. These are coming from Christians who have been caught up in our terribly divided, polarized society where you mix politics and Christianity, and you get politics.
It's been really helpful to have that anchor [of faith]. I don't have to explain to God what it's like to go through a difficult time. I don't need to explain to Jesus what suffering feels like. If you look at the wall [next to my desk], there are various printouts of scriptures or quotes that have been particularly encouraging to me when I needed to be reminded. So Psalm 46—God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Okay, we got trouble. So thank you, God, for being my refuge and strength.
Read More: Foreign Aid Is Retreating. The Church Must Not
You can get your context a little upside-down without having that anchor to faith and to what is good and holy and true, what we're all called to do. And that reassures you that even though it feels like there's a lot of headwinds, you're doing what you're supposed to do to try to stand up for principles that are long-lasting about faith and family and freedom and goodness and love and beauty and truth. Especially truth.
I hope they will see this as a period where big, bold ideas got surfaced, deeply discussed by experts in multiple venues, and then formulated into actual initiatives that could benefit not just the people doing the work, but lots of other people.
The genome project was like that. Maybe that's how I learned how important that could be. But the BRAIN initiative certainly followed that, and the All of Us project, which is now up to 800,000 Americans who are our partners in this effort to really figure out how genetics and environment and health behaviors all work together to see whether somebody is going to stay healthy or develop a chronic illness, and what we could do to prevent that. Its benefits are going to be significant because the data is accessible to all researchers who can begin to sift through and make those discoveries.
I'm deeply troubled that both of those projects have had severe budget cuts, including just in the last week. The All of Us project's budget is down now to less than 30% of what it had been two years ago. It makes it almost untenable for the project to keep doing much more than just caretaking. And this is just at the time where this was going great and having so many new ideas emerging. I hope that's another thing a new NIH director will look at and figure out a way to assist with, because the promise of that still mostly lies ahead.
I started to try to write a new anthem for Stand Up for Science. I figured that every protest group needs a song so that people can gather together and sing it. It didn't quite come together.
So instead, I rewrote the words to a familiar folk song, "All the Good People," and that's what I sang at the Lincoln Memorial. I do believe strongly that music has the potential to bring people together when all else has failed. My wife and I are planning a music party in another couple of months where we will invite to our house as many people as we can fit, which might be about 50, and we'll try to carefully choose people on opposite sides of political issues and then see if by singing together over an evening something might happen.
Contact us at letters@time.com.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


Boston Globe
15 minutes ago
- Boston Globe
Trump charts new territory in bypassing Newsom to deploy National Guard
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Trump invoked a section of the US code that allows the president to bypass a governor's authority over the National Guard and call those troops into federal service when he considers it necessary to repel an invasion or suppress a rebellion, the law states. California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, has sharply criticized the move, saying state and local authorities have the situation under control and accusing Trump of attempting to create a 'spectacle.' Advertisement The directive, announced by the White House late Saturday, came after some protests against immigration raids turned violent, with protesters setting cars aflame and lighting fireworks, and law enforcement in tactical gear using tear gas and stun grenades. Trump claimed in his executive order that the unrest in Southern California was prohibiting the execution of immigration enforcement and therefore met the definition of a rebellion. Advertisement Legal experts said they expect Trump's executive order to draw legal challenges. On Sunday, Newsom asked the Trump administration to rescind his deployment of the National Guard, saying the administration had not followed proper legal procedure in sending them to the state. Trump said the National Guard troops would be used to 'temporarily' protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and 'other United States Government personnel who are performing Federal functions, including the enforcement of Federal law, and to protect Federal property, at locations where protests against these functions are occurring or are likely to occur based on current threat assessments and planned operations.' Goitein called Trump's exercise of the statute an 'untested' departure from its use by previous presidents. She said presidents have in the past invoked this section of federal law in conjunction with the Insurrection Act, which Trump did not. The Insurrection Act authorizes the president to deploy armed forces or the National Guard domestically to suppress armed rebellion, riots or other extreme circumstances. It allows US military personnel to perform law enforcement activities - such as making arrests and performing searches - generally prohibited by another law, the Posse Comitatus Act. The last time a president invoked this section of US code in tandem with the Insurrection Act was in 1992, during the riots that engulfed Los Angeles after the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King. The Insurrection Act has been invoked throughout US history to deal with riots and labor unrest, and to protect Black Americans from the Ku Klux Klan. Advertisement During his 2024 campaign, Trump and aides discussed invoking the Insurrection Act on his first day in office to quell anticipated protests, and he said at an Iowa rally that he would unilaterally send troops to Democratic-run cities to enforce order. 'You look at any Democrat-run state, and it's just not the same - it doesn't work,' Trump told the crowd, suggesting cities like New York and Los Angeles had severe crime problems. 'We cannot let it happen any longer. And one of the other things I'll do - because you're supposed to not be involved in that, you just have to be asked by the governor or the mayor to come in - the next time, I'm not waiting.' Trump's willingness to use the armed forces to put down protests has drawn fierce blowback from civil liberties groups and Democrats, who have said suppressing dissent with military force is a violation of the country's norms. 'President Trump's deployment of federalized National Guard troops in response to protests is unnecessary, inflammatory, and an abuse of power,' Hina Shamsi, director of the National Security Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement. 'By taking this action, the Trump administration is putting Angelenos in danger, creating legal and ethical jeopardy for troops, and recklessly undermining our foundational democratic principle that the military should not police civilians.' Goitein said Trump's move to invoke only the federal service law might be calculated to try to avoid any political fallout from invoking the Insurrection Act, or it's merely a prelude to doing so. 'This is charting new ground here, to have a president try to uncouple these authorities,' Goitein said. 'There's a question here whether he is essentially trying to deploy the powers of the Insurrection Act without invoking it.' Advertisement Trump's move also was unusual in other ways, Goitein said. Domestic military deployments typically come at the request of a governor and in response to the collapse of law enforcement control or other serious threats. Local authorities in Los Angeles have not asked for such help. Goitein said the last time a president ordered the military to a state without a request was in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to Alabama to protect civil rights demonstrators. Georgetown law professor Steve Vladeck wrote on his website that invoking the Armed Services Act - and not the Insurrection Act - means the troops will be limited in what role they will be able to perform. 'Nothing that the President did Saturday night would, for instance, authorize these federalized National Guard troops to conduct their own immigration raids; make their own immigration arrests; or otherwise do anything other than, to quote the President's own memorandum, 'those military protective activities that the Secretary of Defense determines are reasonably necessary to ensure the protection and safety of Federal personnel and property,'' Vladeck wrote. Rachel E. VanLandingham, a former Air Force attorney and professor at the Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, echoed the point. Unless acting under federal orders from the president, National Guard units are state organizations overseen by governors. While under state control, Guard troops have broader law enforcement authorities, VanLandingham said. In this situation, the service members under federal control will have more restraints. 'But it can easily and quickly escalate to mortal and constitutional danger,' she said, if Trump decides to also invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give these Guard members and any active-duty troops who may be summoned to Los Angeles the authority to perform law enforcement duties. Advertisement During his first term as president, Trump suggested invoking the Insurrection Act to deal with protests over the 2020 police killing of George Floyd, but his defense secretary at the time, Mark T. Esper, objected and it never came to fruition. Trump asked the governors of a handful of states to send troops to D.C. in response to the Floyd protests there. Some governors agreed, but others turned aside the request. National Guard members were present outside the White House in June of that year during a violent crackdown on protesters demonstrating against police brutality. That same day, D.C. National Guard helicopters overseen by Trump's Army secretary then, Ryan McCarthy, roared over protesters in downtown Washington, flying as low as 55 feet. An Army review later determined it was a misuse of helicopters specifically designated for medical evacuations. Trump also generated controversy when he sent tactical teams of border officers to Portland, Oregon, and to Seattle to confront protesters there.


Fox News
15 minutes ago
- Fox News
JONATHAN TURLEY: Democrats' rabid anti-ICE resistance in LA against Trump could backfire
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was in his element over the weekend. After scenes of burning cars and attacks on ICE personnel, Newsom declared that this was all "an illegal act, an immoral act, an unconstitutional act." No, he was not speaking of the attacks on law enforcement or property. He was referring to President Donald Trump's call to deploy the National Guard to protect federal officers. Newsom is planning to challenge the deployment as cities like Glendale are cancelling contracts to house detainees and reaffirming that local police will not assist the federal government. Trump has the authority under Section 12406 of Title 10 of the U.S. Code to deploy the National Guard if the governor is "unable with the regular forces to execute the laws of the United States." The administration is saying that that is precisely what is unfolding in California, where mobs have attacked vehicles and trapped federal personnel. Most critics are challenging the deployment on policy grounds, arguing that it is an unnecessary escalation. However, even critics like Berkeley Law Dean Erwin have admitted that "Unfortunately, President Trump likely has the legal authority to do this." There is a fair debate over whether this is needed at this time, but the president is allowed to reach a different conclusion. Trump wants the violence to end now as opposed to escalating as it did in the Rodney King riots or the later riots after George Floyd's death, causing billions in property damage and many deaths. Courts will be asked to halt the order because it did not technically go through Newsom to formally call out the National Guard. Section 12406 grants Trump the authority to call out the Guard and employs a mandatory term for governors, who "shall" issue the president's order. In the memo, Trump also instructed federal officials "to coordinate with the Governors of the States and the National Guard Bureau." Newsom is clearly refusing to issue the orders or coordinate the deployment. Even if such challenges are successful, Trump can clearly flood the zone with federal authority. Indeed, the obstruction could escalate the matter further, prompting Trump to consider using the Insurrection Act, which would allow troops to participate directly in civilian law enforcement. In 1958, President Eisenhower used the Insurrection Act to deploy troops to Arkansas to enforce the Supreme Court's orders ending racial segregation in schools. The Trump administration has already claimed that these riots "constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States." In support of such a claim, the administration could cite many of the Democratic leaders now denouncing the claim. After January 6th, liberal politicians and professors insisted that the riot was an "insurrection" and claimed that Trump and dozens of Republicans could be removed from ballots under the 14th Amendment. Liberal professors insisted that Trump's use of the word "fight" on January 6th and his questioning of the results of an election did qualify as an insurrection. They argued that you merely need to show "an assemblage of people" who are "resisting the law" and "using force or intimidation" for "a public purpose." The involvement of inciteful language from politicians only reinforced these claims. Sound familiar? Democrats are using this order to deflect from their own escalation of the tensions over the past several months. From Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz calling ICE officers "Gestapo" to others calling them "fascists" and "Nazis," Democratic leaders have been ignoring objections that they are fueling the violent and criminal responses. It did not matter. It was viewed as good politics. While Newsom and figures like New Jersey Democrat Sen. Cory Booker have called these "peaceful" protests, we have also seen rocks, and Molotov cocktails thrown at police as vehicles were torched. Police have had to use tear gas, "flash bang" grenades, and rubber bullets to quell these "peaceful" protesters. There appears little interest in deescalation on either side. For the Trump administration, images of rioters riding in celebration around burning cars with Mexican flags are only likely to reinforce the support of the majority of Americans for the enforcement of immigration laws. For Democrats, they have gone "all in" on opposing ICE and these enforcement operations despite support from roughly 30 percent of the public. Some Democrats are now playing directly to the mob. A Los Angeles City Council member, Eunisses Hernandez, reportedly urged anti-law enforcement protesters to "escalate" their tactics against ICE officers: "They know how quickly we mobilize, that's why they're changing tactics. Because community defense works and our resistance has slowed them down before… and if they're escalating their tactics, then so are we. When they show up, we gotta show up even stronger." So, L.A. officials are maintaining the sanctuary status of the city, barring the cooperation of local police, and calling on citizens to escalate their resistance after a weekend of violent attacks. Others have posted the locations of ICE facilities to allow better tracking of operations, while cities like Glendale are closing facilities. In Washington, House Speaker Hakim Jeffries has pledged to unmask the identities of individual ICE officers who have been covering their faces to protect themselves and their families from growing threats. While Democrats have not succeeded in making a convincing political case for opposing immigration enforcement, they may be making a stronger case for federal deployment in increasingly hostile blue cities.


Fox News
15 minutes ago
- Fox News
Liberals, anti-Trump figures bash ABC for suspending Terry Moran over anti-Trump social media rant
Liberal pundits and anti-Trump figures slammed ABC News for suspending longtime correspondent Terry Moran after he ranted on social media about President Donald Trump and Stephen Miller. "They can clutch their pearls and act mad but this is spot on from Moran," Tommy Vietor, a co-host of "Pod Save America," wrote, reacting to Moran's deleted social media post that referred to both men as "world-class hater[s]." Moran called out Trump and Miller on social media early Sunday morning and proceeded to delete the post. An ABC News spokesperson told Fox News Digital in a statement that Moran was suspended, saying, "The post does not reflect the views of ABC News and violated our standards." "MAGA, I thought you all defended free speech and the First Amendment, right? Why are you so upset about Terry Moran's comments? Stop being such snowflakes, right? Stop looking for safe spaces. Man up," posted left-wing writer Wajahat Ali, who edits "The Left Hook" Substack. Joe Walsh, a former GOP congressman who joined the Democratic Party this year, said, "shame on you, @abcnews." "Way to NOT stand up for a free press," he added. In another post on X, Walsh called the suspension of Moran "utter b-------," and said, "You're the free press. You don't do what the authoritarian in the White House tells you to do. Thank you @TerryMoran for having the courage to speak the truth." "What Moran reported was demonstrable fact. Indisputable fact. Yet they suspend him. This is the advantage that Trump and his ilk have. They are so beyond the moral pale, so beyond normality, that it is considered impolite, impolitic, or intemperate to describe them as they are," Lincoln Project co-founder George Conway wrote. Medhi Hasan, a former MSNBC host who started his own publication, Zeteo, directed his criticism at the Trump officials who defended the president and Miller. "Snowflakes. Pretend free speech warriors. Getting journalists suspended and calling for their firing. Hypocrites," Hasan wrote. Hasan also posted on Bluesky that Moran's suspension was "'ironic given Moran went out of his way to not embarrass Trump over the president's delusion about the doctored MS13 photo, repeatedly saying 'let's agree to disagree' and 'let's move on' but they still got him suspended. You can't appease these people ever." Moran interviewed Trump about his first 100 days in office, during which Trump repeatedly called out Moran and ABC News. Trump accused Moran of "not being very nice" during an exchange about the deportation of illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia. "They're giving you the big break of a lifetime," Trump told Moran. "You're doing the interview, I picked you because, frankly, I never heard of you, but that's OK. I picked you, Terry, but you're not being very nice." Far-left former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann re-posted Moran's attacks on Miller and Trump, and called out Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, which owns ABC News. "Another coward named @RobertIger responded by letting ABC News suspend Terry indefinitely for telling the truth," Olbermann wrote. "I have copied Terry's words here and I encourage everybody, journalists especially, to do the same, or cut and paste what I've written, and put it out under your name." Others also called on their followers to share Moran's deleted post. Ron Filipkowski, editor-in-chief of MeidasTouch, a liberal website, said Moran's suspension was a product of corporate journalism. "Independent journalism is when you can write what Terry Moran wrote without getting in trouble. Corporate journalism is when you can't," he wrote. ABC News did not immediately return a request for comment. Moran's suspension for airing his thoughts comes as public trust in the media continues to steadily erode. A Gallup survey last year showed a record-low 31 percent of Americans expressed at least a "fair amount" of trust in the media to accurately report the news. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to Moran's post on X, Sunday, calling it "unhinged and unacceptable."