Coming just four months after another proposed cut that was rejected by Congress, Nye rejected the new proposal as “lazier” and riddled with “typos.”

Bill Nye warns Trump’s proposed cuts could ‘end’ NASA: ‘Huge mistake’

Coming just four months after another proposed cut that was rejected by Congress, Nye rejected the new proposal as "lazier" and riddled with "typos."

By Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman

Ryan Coleman is a news writer for with previous work in MUBI Notebook, Slant, and the LA Review of Books.

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April 20, 2026 10:49 p.m. ET

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Bill Nye and Donald Trump. Credit:

Arturo Holmes/WireImage; Jim WATSON / AFP via Getty

- Bill Nye is slamming President Donald Trump's proposed 23 percent cut to NASA as "a huge mistake."

- The move comes just four months after Congress rejected a similar proposal.

- The beloved "science guy" warned that if passed, the cut would effectively "end" NASA, as he derided the new proposal as "lazier" than the last, and riddled with "typos."

Bill Nye has a stern warning for Donald Trump: leave our rockets alone.

The beloved mechanical engineer and former *Bill Nye the Science Guy *personality is sounding the alarm over a line item in Donald Trump's proposed budget for the 2027 fiscal year that hasn't gotten as much attention as, say, his historic $1.5 trillion ask for defense spending.

While praising the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's recent lunar mission, Artemis II, Nye couldn't help remark on the irony that "meanwhile, somebody wants to sort of, how do you say, end NASA. It's a strange time."

In the interview with NBC News on Monday, Nye candidly characterized the proposed 23 percent cut to NASA's budget as "a huge mistake. NASA is the best brand the U.S. has. People around the world recognize NASA. The word science is in the constitution. That's what keeps the U.S. ahead."

"You cannot be a leader in space without being a leader in science. It's just a mistake," he said.

A "mistake" that the Trump administration just made in January, when a previously proposed 18 percent cut to NASA's $24.4 billion budget was rejected by both chambers of Congress.

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Nye said he was on Capitol Hill in the fall, fighting against those cuts.

"Members of Congress and their staff said the President's Budget Request, the PBR, is dead on arrival, and they pushed back and overwhelmed that request. Why it's happened again is not clear."

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The mere fact that the Trump administration is trying again to slash the budget for the nation's largest independent civil space and research agency isn't the only thing that upsets Nye. It's how the administration is going about it.

"Objectively, this time, the President's Budget Request is written — how would I describe — it's much lazier," Nye claimed. "There are typos; they refer to 2026 instead of 2027, and they left out some language arbitrarily. It's sort of cut and paste without paying attention."

* *has reached out to representatives for the White House and NASA for comment.

The launch of NASA's Artemis II mission at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on April 1.

Gregg Newton / AFP via Getty

It's an odd time to propose a cut to NASA when the agency just executed a successful, widely celebrated mission that set historic new precedents.

The Artemis II lunar mission, launched on April 1 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., was the first crewed flight beyond low-Earth orbit since 1972, and was co-manned by the first astronaut of color (Victor Glover) and first woman (Christina Koch) to travel around the moon.

On Monday, NASA announced that Artemis II was just the beginning.

"The Artemis II test flight successfully began a new era of exploration, laying the groundwork for the third Artemis mission next year," the agency explained, detailing "lunar surface missions, a Moon base, and future missions to Mars."

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