The NIH Walkout Is a Perfect Snapshot of the Washington D.C. Rot

A few weeks ago on our show Truth Over News, we talked about the many layers of responsibility for the Covid disaster—legal, moral, political—but we also focused on something even more enduring: institutional failure. No institution played a bigger role in that failure than the National Institutes of Health. And this week, in an act of breathtaking arrogance, NIH staff showed the world just how deep the rot runs.

At a town hall meeting organized by new NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya—a Stanford professor best known for telling the truth on lockdowns and censorship—staffers staged a walkout. Not in response to some inflammatory rant or wild accusation, but because Bhattacharya gently suggested the obvious: that Covid may have come from a lab, and that NIH may have helped fund the research:

“It’s possible that the pandemic was caused by research conducted by human beings,” he said, “and it’s also possible that the NIH partly sponsored that research. I’ve looked at the scientific evidence and I believe it.”

That’s it. No accusations. No demands. Just a statement of scientific consensus—and a painfully moderate one at that. But even this was too much for the bureaucrats whose salaries are paid by you, the taxpayer. They couldn’t handle hearing a plain truth from their own director. So they got up and walked out.

If you want a perfect metaphor for what’s wrong with Washington, there it is.

This wasn’t just a tantrum. It was a rejection of oversight, of accountability, of truth itself. These people weren’t hired to be activists. They’re supposed to be public servants—responsible stewards of a $60 billion budget, more than the GDP of most countries. And yet, they behave like entitled lifers, immune to scrutiny and allergic to change.

That’s the real problem. Washington is packed to the rafters with people just like this: unfireable, unaccountable, untouchable. Try to hold them responsible and you’ll run into a wall of judges, unions, NGOs, and media outrage. The ACLU will sue, Obama- and Biden-appointed judges will block terminations. And an army of bureaucrats will dig in to protect their turf.

What happened at the NIH is a small but symbolic moment. It exposes why reform has failed, and why even Trump’s second term is struggling to move the needle.

The truth is, no one gets fired. No one goes to jail. Nothing changes.

Even Elon Musk, who charged into Washington determined to fix it, now seems ready to walk away. He dismantled bloated departments at X (formerly Twitter), exposed internal corruption, and proved what’s possible when someone with brains and backbone goes to war with a broken system. Over the past four months, he’s poured himself into trying to reform D.C., working around the clock with his DOGE team to root out waste and fight entrenched power. But even he’s now openly suggesting that meaningful reform may be a lost cause. Why? Because every time anyone tries to change anything, the system closes ranks: courts, bureaucrats, media, Democrats, even many Republicans.

Much of the resistance President Trump is now facing in his second term was foreseeable—and in many cases, foreseen. But there was always a supposed failsafe: cut the funding. If the money dries up, the machine can’t run. Yet here too, just like with the bureaucrats, the courts, and the media, we’ve hit a wall—and that wall is Congress. Democrats want to spend more, not less. Republicans still refuse to act. And laws like the Impoundment Control Act make it nearly impossible for a president to cut spending unilaterally. Congress has to act—and Congress won’t.

So we’re left with a federal government that no one can control. A labyrinth of 2.3 million employees, most of them hostile to any reform, deeply embedded in agencies that long ago stopped serving the public. These people don’t care whether Covid came from a lab. They don’t care if the truth gets out. They care about one thing: protecting their empires.

And that’s the ugly truth no one wants to face: the system can’t be fixed. Not through policy. Not through elections. Not even through executive orders. Every lever of power is wired to protect the status quo. If Trump can’t fix it—and he may be our last shot—then the only real path left is collapse.

So what does collapse look like?

The national debt is nearing $40 trillion—over $120,000 for every single American—and rising fast. Interest payments alone now cost more than the entire defense budget. This isn’t sustainable. If the government keeps spending unchecked, the endgame will be a slow, grinding unraveling. For now, the U.S. can keep muddling through. The dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency buys time. The system will continue to absorb the debt through money printing and foreign demand for Treasuries. But over time, as inflation eats away at real incomes and interest payments crowd out the budget, the government will be forced to borrow at higher rates or print even more—fueling a vicious cycle.

Eventually, interest rates will spike. Markets will crash. Entitlements won’t be paid. Pensions will vanish. The guaranteed comforts will disappear. No more secure government jobs. No more endless grants. No more unfireable bureaucrats walking out of town halls like they run the place.

It will be brutal—but it may be the only thing that finally forces change. While no one wants that outcome, Washington keeps proving—day after day—that it won’t change. The NIH walkout wasn’t just a tantrum. It was a warning. These people aren’t listening. They’re not interested. And they will burn everything down before they let anyone fix it.

So maybe the only way out is through. When the money runs out, the delusions will too.