Vice President JD Vance showed some mind-numbing ignorance in a recent attempt to downplay reports that his administration has caused a “brain drain” — or an exodus of expertise leaving the United States’ scientific fields — by suspending research grants and targeting student visa programs.

Reputable voices in academia have highlighted the Trump administration-fueled crisis and its potential to inflict lasting damage on the future of American science. But in an interview Thursday with the right-wing outlet NewsmaxVance waved off those concerns with some jingoism and what appears to be thinly veiled racial bigotry:

Vance, who previously delivered a speech framing universities as “the enemy” in American society, went on to suggest that U.S. colleges may not be producing “good science” because, according to him, many schools discriminate against white and Asian people. This was an especially ironic claim given it’s his administration that is currently threatening to pull student visas from thousands of Chinese students. But let’s sit with his “why can’t Americans do this” question for a moment, shall we? Because it sounds patriotic — but it’s fundamentally idiotic.

For one: Vance’s comments were surprisingly dismissive of contributions from the more than 1,500 German scientists, some of them Nazisbrought to the United States as part of an operation known as “Project Paperclip” (the vice president isn’t exactly known for giving accurate lessons on American history). But to be clear: There’s an illustrious history of immigrant scientists coming to the United States and making tremendous contributions to the American way of life. But aside from that, Trump’s crackdown on science is also causing American scientists and aspiring scientists — the ones Vance claims to care about — to reconsider their career path.

The Boston Globe highlighted that trend in a recent report sourced from more than two dozen young scientists, who said they’re considering going abroad to find jobs or, potentially, abandoning scientific research entirely due to the Trump administration’s actions.

Per the report:

And other nations see opportunity in the United States pursuing an anti-science agenda under Donald Trump.

As I wrote in a recent Tuesday Tech Drop, foreign science organizations are licking their chops at the chance to poach American scientists who may be looking to take their expertise elsewhere. All of this highlights the ignorance in Vance’s idea that American science will chug along undeterred as Trump’s administration cracks down on academic freedom.

The notion that American scientists will be eager to work in an increasingly repressive environment — one in which their research can be irreparably quashed and their foreign-born colleagues can be unceremoniously booted from the country —seems utterly detached from reality.

Ja’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is an BLN opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog. He is a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI, appeared to become emotional on live national television Thursday. Not while recalling some gut-wrenching FBI child exploitation case, or a grisly mass shooting crime scene. No, Bongino, a former right-wing podcaster and conspiracy theoristwho is typically a tough-guy poser, went on the Fox News’ morning show “Fox and Friends”to whine about how taxing his new gig is. There’s more here than meets the watery eye.

“I gave up everything for this,” he lamented before adding that FBI Director Kash Patel typically works 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and that “I’m in there at 7:30 in the morning.” Bongino said, “I stare at these four walls all day in D.C., by myself, divorced from my wife — not divorced, but I mean separated, divorced — and it’s hard. I mean, we love each other, and it’s hard to be apart.”

After saying that the job has been tough on his family, he said, “People ask all the time, ‘Do you like it?’ No. I don’t.”

Cry me a river. Bongino is describing what anyone in a senior FBI leadership role is expected to endure, particularly at headquarters. I’ve been there, done that.

As an inspector and then chief inspector based in Washington, D.C., I had to live apart from family, travel extensively and fly home whenever a free weekend permitted. When I was named an assistant director, we agreed to let our son finish his last year of high school and then my wife joined me in D.C. And my experience was easier than senior executives at even higher levels. Entering the J. Edgar Hoover building before sunrise and leaving after sundown was the norm — for all of us.

Such personal and professional sacrifice isn’t limited to executives. Agents and professional specialists throughout the FBI’s field offices routinely miss family events, their kids’ birthday parties and games, and have their vacations and holidays disrupted. The same is true for career government servants across our institutions. Welcome to the real world, Mr. Bongino.

It’s not hard to surmise why Bongino felt it necessary to broadcast how hard he and Director Patel are working. Both are under increasing pressure from the Trump base to deliver on the conspiracy theories they promoted before Trump hired them and to expose the so-called deep state cover-ups they claimed existed. Moreover, Patel has been taking some heat lately on whether he’s taking his job seriously — especially after he showed up unprepared for a budget hearing in Congress.

Bongino seems particularly touchy about how he’s perceived. When he got wind that The New York Times might publish an embarrassing account of how he was injured trying to grapple with an FBI instructor at the bureau’s academy, Bongino tried to get out in front of it by issuing his own statement on X that confirmed he was no match for the FBI agent and that he got hurt. He said it was “not an ‘injury’ but a bit of swelling in my right elbow.”

Some of this transparent attempt at PR might be humorous if it weren’t consistent with Trump world’s misunderstanding of sacrifice. The president himself has equated the hard work he says he does with sacrifice and, most disgracefully, said it in response to a Gold Star family who said he’d “sacrificed nothing.” And at a public event this Memorial DayPresident Trump extolled his own accomplishments in office.

In his 2019 book “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us,” Donald Trump Jr. wrote about Arlington National Cemetery this way: “As we drove past the rows of white grave markers … I also thought of … all the sacrifices we’d have to make — giving up a huge chunk of our business and all international deals.”

The president himself has equated the hard work he says he does with sacrifice.

The president’s net worth has doubled to $5.4 billion since he ran for re-election. Much of that increased wealth is coming from the Trump family’s engagements in the Middle East, including with an Emirates company that struck a deal to purchase $2 billion of a Trump family organization digital coin.

While the FBI’s deputy director bemoans his lot in life, and the president and his family get richer while pretending they’ve made substantial sacrifices for the country, perhaps they should consider the plight of Americans who work two jobs to make ends meet, the losses suffered by Ukrainians fighting for freedom, the horrors experienced by Israeli hostages and their families, and the agony of children in Gaza begging for a meal. Hard work is admirable, but if you’re going to complain about it, you’ll get little sympathy from me.

Frank Figliuzzi

Frank Pigluzzi is an BLN columnist and senior national security and intelligence analyst for NBC News and BLN. He was the assistant director for counterintelligence at the FBI, where he served 25 years as a special agent and directed all espionage investigations across the government. He is the author of “The FBI Way: Inside the Bureau’s Code of Excellence.”

Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers. There’s a new legal process in America. It used to be that a guilty verdict or plea was followed by years of appeals and, perhaps years after that, a prayerful pardon application. This week showcased a new playbook: skirt your tax obligations by millions of dollars to fund a lavish lifestyle, plead guilty and, instead of going to prison or paying restitution, have your mom raise money for the president and then get pardoned.

That’s the case of Paul Walczak in a nutshellbut he’s not the only new clemency recipient. Among this week’s winning contestants were the reality television couple Todd and Julie Chrisley, whom President Donald Trump sprung from hefty prison terms for financial fraud. Their daughter spoke last summer at the Republican National Convention, where she likened her parents’ purported persecution to Trump’s indictments. You could say they’re kindred spirits with the president when it comes to reality TVfraud and, with those first two commonalities in mind, a knack for casting their cases as coming from unscrupulous prosecutors (in the Chrisleys’ case that prosecutor being a Trump appointeeby the way).

Remember, Trump’s pardon spree didn’t start this week or even this year. In his first term, he kicked things off by pardoning Joe Arpaio, the Arizona lawman convicted of contempt for disobeying a court order to stop racial profiling people for immigration enforcement. That set the “law and order” tone that carries through to this day, when shirking court orders in the name of immigration enforcement sums up the Trump administration’s legal work.

Another former sheriff was among the lucky winners on Trump’s clemency show. When Scott Jenkins of Virginia was sentenced to 10 years for bribery in March, the acting U.S. attorney had the temerity to criticize him for having “violated his oath of office and the faith the citizens of Culpeper County placed in him when he engaged in a cash-for-badges scheme.” The prosecutor’s statement from that bygone era continued, “We hold our elected law enforcement officials to a higher standard of conduct and this case proves that when those officials use their authority for unjust personal enrichment, the Department of Justice will hold them accountable.” That is, until — well, you know.

“No MAGA left behind,” Ed Martin”https://x.com/EagleEdMartin/status/1927092000848855360″>tweeted upon Jenkins’ pardon. You may recall Martin as having effectively been deemed too extreme for confirmation by the Republican-controlled Senate for Washington, D.C.’s top prosecutor job. So the administration shifted his duties, and his portfolio now includes being the DOJ’s pardon attorney (the last one, Liz oyerwas fired in March after she refused a speedy request to recommend restoring Mel Gibson’s gun rights, which the Trump-supporting actor lost due to his domestic violence conviction).

One gets the sense that corruption prosecutions are not a priority in the Trump administration. That’s evident not only through the president’s clemency but also through his Justice Department’s actions in court — perhaps most notably in moving to dismiss New York City Mayor Eric Adams’ corruption case for overtly political reasons. Ryan Reilly of NBC News observed a connection between the Adams and Jenkins cases, noting that they’re linked by the DOJ’s Public Integrity Section, which, he reported“has shrunk in both size and influence during the Trump administration.”

The Adams connection leads us to another big story this week: Trump announced his intention to nominate Emil Bove to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit. Bove came onto the scene as then-candidate Trump’s criminal defense lawyer, losing the hush money trial alongside his co-counsel Todd Blanche. Blanche is now the DOJ’s deputy attorney general and Bove is principal associate deputy.

Putting Bove on the bench would reward a sinister use of his law license with a lifetime judicial appointment. His handling of the Adams case is just one example but it’s enough to show that he hardly deserves to be a lawyer, much less a judge. Recall that Bove not only pushed for an overtly political dismissal of the corruption case but caused several ethical prosecutors to resign rather than do his dirty work.

And after all that, Bove failed to get the case dismissed in the shady way he wanted to — that is, in a way that would’ve given Trump’s DOJ the option of holding the charges as political leverage over the Democratic mayor. The reason Bove failed in his corrupt mission was that the judge presiding over the case, Biden appointee Dale Ho, saw through the farce and refused to allow it.

To be sure, Democrats are at fault for failing to confirm a deserving nominee to the Philadelphia-based circuit when they had the chance last year, leaving a vacant seat for Republicans to fill. The consequences of that failure shouldn’t be forgotten, then, if Bove is privileged to be in the position of making decisions like the one Ho had to make, in rising above the base impulses of lawyers like Bove.

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Jordan Rubin

Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.