'The politics are bad': Ex-Republican warns Trump just made a huge blunder

Former Republican Bill Kristol believes that President Donald Trump will regret taking a hatchet to the National Institutes for Health.

Although the administration has claimed that its cuts to administrative overhead won't affect research on projects such as treatments for cancer, Kristol argues in his latest piece at The Bulwark that "if you suddenly and drastically cut funding for the 'indirect' costs of research — the money used for the facilities, equipment, and staff that support biomedical research — you’re going to be cutting biomedical research."

He then points to fresh polling from Navigator Research showing that significantly more Americans are concerned that Trump will go too far in cutting programs such as the NIH than are concerned that Trump's actions will be blocked by courts.

Additionally, Kristol notes that the cuts won't just affect major institutions such as Harvard or Yale that can survive the reduced payments, but also universities in red states that are more reliant on federal funding.

"Most of the indirect cost money goes to other institutions, including public universities and hospitals, that aren’t swimming in extra cash," he writes. "Scientists and researchers of all political persuasions will be pointing this out. And many of these institutions are in red states. That’s why over the weekend Republican Sen. Katie Britt from Alabama refused to defend the cuts. The politics of NIH cuts are bad for Trump."

On top of all this, writes Kristol, "It may also be worth noting that what the Trump administration is doing is illegal," given that "congressional legislation appropriating funds for NIH prohibits the executive branch from making changes in how NIH funds overhead costs."