https://portside.org/2025-10-09/shortlist-federal-data-trump-administration-has-tampered-or-destroyed

The scale and scope of federal data and statistics that have been completely removed or otherwise compromised by President Donald Trump’s administration is too overwhelming to chronicle fully. When the president’s executive orders banning diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives came down in January and February, the federal agencies now under his authority scrambled to comply. Per tallies at the time, around 8,000 webpages and approximately 3,000 datasets were taken down or modified. Some went back up, but not without changes that subject matter experts are still working to quantify nearly nine months later.

“We know that in some cases what was changed was about identity. But in other cases, there just hadn’t been systematic analysis or transparency about what was done to them,” said Margaret Levenstein, director at the University of Michigan’s Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research. “And so we don’t know what else might have been changed.”

Some of the most sweeping alterations were made to data on transgender and gender identity-related topics, and diversity and race, thanks to the so-called “Defending Women” and “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs” executive orders, respectively. Those changes, which have been thoroughly reported, are some of the clearest examples of explicit policy decisions that have compromised the accuracy and adequacy of information that makes a difference in people’s lives.

Data has also been compromised as a result of Trump’s firing spree. Some of the disruption results from deep layoffs at federal statistical and research agencies like the National Occupational Research Agenda, United States Agency for International Development, and the National Center for Education Statistics, as well as the dismissal of experienced officials like ousted Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner Erika McEntarfer. 

Many agencies have long flagged that budgetary constraints were limiting their ability to accrue accurate, timely data on which both the private and public sector rely. But the actions of the Trump administration have made this existing problem far worse.

“It is hard to disentangle it,” said Levenstein, “but it sort of doesn’t matter. What we need is sufficient funding and independence and a commitment to high quality data.” 

“​​Unfortunately, I think we’re at a point where anything from the federal government has to be treated with a certain amount of skepticism if not suspicion,” echoed Dana Willbanks of the Climate Science Legal Defense Fund, “depending on who it’s coming from and who they’ve brought on board to support those positions.”

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the administration is still publishing data.

 “The Administration remains committed to the publication of timely, reliable, and accurate government data that informs decision-making by policymakers, businesses, and families,” Desai said. “That does not include government data programs used to push DEI and other ideological agendas.”

Ultimately, much has changed for the worse in the world of information access and transparency since January 2025. Here’s an incomplete list of federal data and statistics that’ve been deleted or tampered with.

Do you know of any high-profile or lesser-known but still important data sets that have been removed, tampered with or hidden? Let us know! Email Layla@talkingpointsmemo.com 

 

Health

Pregnancy and Family-related Data

• The Trump administration moved to eliminate the Centers for Disease Control’s Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS), a research program that collects data about people who are pregnant or have recently given birth. It has been running since 1987 and is “the only national survey dataset dedicated to pregnancy and the postpartum period,” according to Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. A disclaimer on a CDC landing page for PRAMS data as of Oct. 7 declared the agency isn’t processing data requests.
• An August judicial ruling protected some CDC employees from layoffs but allowed others to go through, resulting in the permanent termination of at least 600 staffers. While it’s unclear which specific data sets these layoffs might affect, some of the affected employees handled issues related to violence prevention, including rape, child abuse, teen dating violence, and international violence against children, according to the Associated Press.

HIV/Aids Data ‘TBD’

• Data collected as part of the U.S. effort to address HIV and AIDS in foreign countries has been taken offline. The program, started by George W. Bush, is known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. A message on its program data page directs users to its data release calendar, where the dates for three out of four data releases are listed just as “TBD.” A State Department spokesperson told CNN that the initiative is collecting data that captures “recent updates to programming,” but shared no indication of what those updates may be.
• A disclaimer on the restored Department of Health and Human Services’ “Living with HIV” page, like on many other HHS info pages, contains a Trumpian disclaimer rejecting “extremely inaccurate” information about “gender ideology.” But the page doesn’t contain that, calling into question whether language on the page had been altered.

COVID Vaccine Guidance Manipulated

• According to the Internet Archive, the COVID vaccine was recommended for use in pregnancy through January 2025, when Trump retook office. But the live version of that CDC page, dated August 22, says there is no guidance for pregnant women to take the COVID vaccine. 
• On Oct. 6, CDC then issued new guidelines encouraging people to consult a healthcare professional before getting the COVID shot, and said in a press release that the new booster “prompted widespread risk-benefit concerns about their safety and efficacy.” 

Public benefits

No SNAP, No Measure of Hunger, No Problem?

• The Trump administration ended the annual U.S. Department of Agriculture survey on food insecurity, just in time for Republicans’ cuts to SNAP to take effect. The final report will be released on Oct. 22. The Food Research and Action Center, or FRAC, condemned the move in a statement from its president, Crystal FitzSimons. “The most recent cuts to SNAP, for instance, will undoubtedly deepen food insecurity, but without annual data, it will be far easier for that reality to be ignored or dismissed,” she said.

Population

No ‘Short-Term Solution’ for Down Census Bureau Tool

• The Census Bureau’s QuickFacts website, which usually lists population estimates over several years; age, sex and race; foreign-born and veteran status; and other demographic information for specific regions, has been down since at least August, TPM noticed. When contacted, the Census Bureau’s public information office initially regurgitated the “ongoing maintenance” language on the  defunct website. Reached more than a month later, a statement from the bureau’s Data Tools Team said the application was “undergoing unplanned maintenance,” with no “short-term solution” in sight.

Climate

Deleted Landing Pages Restored, But With a Caveat

• In January, USDA  employees were forced to remove landing pages which mentioned climate change. “‘Pending further review’ is what they were told,” said Willbanks, “but we’ll see if that’s a real thing.” A group of farmers who rely on climate change-related data sued the administration as a result, and the USDA said in May it would restore the pages. Some pages still contain a disclaimer about potential changes.

‘Safe Drinking Water’ Banned

• A leaked memo showed the USDA’s research division banned more than 100 words from their publications, including “indigenous,” “black,” and “safe drinking water.”

Fifteen-Agency National Climate Assessments Initiative Goes Dark

• The U.S. Global Change Research Program, an intra-agency initiative between 15 federal agencies which creates the national climate assessments, went offline in June. “Even if they don’t delete pages and reports and data,” said Willbanks, “they make it impossible to find. They bury it in a dark corner of their webpage.”
• The USGCRP presented the most recent climate assessment report to Congress but NASA abandoned plans to host the data online, telling NPR that the agency “has no legal obligations” to do so.

Top Viewed Data Set Ends Updates

• The Environmental Protection Agency said it would cease updating research connected to its highly viewed greenhouse gas emissions calculator after the researcher who created the database was suspended for criticizing the president. Of the government’s more than 281,000 datasets, the greenhouse gas emissions calculator was the third-most viewed database and is used by corporations to calculate their emissions. 

A Potentially Life-Saving Weather Tool Suspended

• Just days after floods in Texas killed more than 100 people, including more than 35  children, the Commerce Department, which houses the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suspended work on its Atlas 15 project, an immense undertaking designed to help predict how climate change would impact extreme rain events. After the historic floods in Texas and media reports about the Atlas 15 indefinite suspension, the Trump administration said it resumed work on the project.

Workplace and Employment

Changes in Race, Gender Tracking for Federal Workers

• The Office of Personnel Management’s FedScope Database provides a great deal of information about federal workforce demographics and is undergoing maintenance to change its use of “gender” in compliance with Trump’s EO, according to a disclaimer on its website. The race and ethnicity modules on the database were completely removed.

Hobbling Research on Workplace Injury and Death

• The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) gutted the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, effectively dismantling “the sole agency responsible for research that informs” the Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s workplace injury and fatality policymaking. “I have to say for an administration which is supposed to care about workers, not caring about work or health is particularly egregious,” said Levenstein.

Politics

Downplaying Right-Wing Violence

• Trump has long attempted to reframe political violence as a problem on the left, a stance which isn’t rooted in reality. Days after conservative podcaster Charlie Kirk was killed, Trump’s Department of Justice removed a 2024 study which showed domestic terrorists are most likely right-wing extremists.

Trump Politicizes National Parks and Museums

• Trump’s March EO sought to whitewash America’s past by removing descriptions that his administration feels “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Such information, according to the Trump administration, deals with issues like slavery and racial segregation. The White House in late August critiqued the Smithsonian system for racially inclusive and historically accurate exhibits. He has threatened the independence of the National Museum of African American History and Culture and reportedly removed artifacts from the institution, a claim the museum denies.
• The administration ordered National Park Service sites to remove information related to slavery and indigenous populations, including a well-known Civil War-era image of a formerly enslaved man with a deeply scarred back.
• National Parks have also been asked to remove signage and materials related to climate change in compliance with Trump’s same March EO.

Congressional Funding Transparency

Theft by pocket recissions, which legal experts flagged as illegal but which the Supreme Court later ruled to allow the administration to continue for now, isn’t all the Trump administration has been doing to obscure the tracking of taxpayer dollars and snatch Congressional appropriations power. A NOTUS investigation revealed even congresspeople don’t know whether the money they allocated is being spent in the manner they approved or whether it’s being spent at all. The investigation drew on a lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington after the organization went looking for required posted apportionments of federal funds and instead found footnotes referring to opaque “spend plans.”

[Layla A. Jones is a reporter for TPM in Washington, D.C., with experience covering government and economic policy, race, culture, and history. She has written for the Philadelphia Inquirer, Billy Penn, WHYY, NPR, and the Philadelphia Tribune, and participated in the Knight-Bagehot Fellowship at Columbia University. She attended Temple University for undergrad.]