Hi, I’m Tim Marchman, WIRED’s director of politics, science, and security, and I’m filling in for Jake this week.

On August 7, the White House issued an executive order giving political appointees authority over federal grant-making. This made the nonpartisan experts who have long decided how agencies like the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation direct funds subordinate to, well, commissars.

Nestled in the order was a phrase that’s become increasingly familiar to me over the past seven months as I’ve read piles of boring documents issuing from the administration, trying to figure out what it’s doing.

“Discretionary awards must, where applicable,” it read, “demonstrably advance the President’s policy priorities.”

This phrase, and variants, come up a lot.

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