Trump tells Artemis II crew he saved Nasa despite trying to slash agency’s budget

The crew of Artemis II phoned home from above the moon on Monday night after their record-breaking day, to find Donald Trump musing about how he had saved the US space agency, Nasa, from closing down and telling the astronauts how much they deserved the honor of the president seeking their autographs. The intermittently uncomfortable 12-minute Earth-to-space call, facilitated by the Nasa administrator and Trump acolyte, Jared Isaacman, featured a lengthy period of silence, several references by the president about his friendship with the retired Canadian ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky, and how “America is the hottest country in the world right now”. But it was Trump’s questionable claim to have rescued Nasa during his first presidency that raised eyebrows and left the Artemis crew awkwardly tossing a microphone to each other in zero gravity just hours after setting a record for the farthest-traveled humans from Earth. Related: Artemis II swings back around after completing record-setting moon flyby “You know, I had a decision to make in my first term, and the decision is: ‘What are we going to do at Nasa?’” Trump said. “Are we going to have it be revived, or are we going to close it down? And I had very little hesitation. And it’s really great to have somebody like Jared involved, because it really makes it much easier for me. But it was not even a question in my own mind. “We’ve spent what we had to do.” While Trump has directed more resources to the space agency’s human spaceflight program, especially Artemis, he has consistently tried to slash its overall spending. After Trump’s second presidency began in early 2025, the White House proposed a 24% cut to the Nasa budget to $18.8bn, the lowest it would have been in a decade, prompting experts to denounce “extinction-level” reductions to the agency’s science programs. Congress, in a rare show of bipartisanship, united to oppose the cuts, and in January it passed an almost fully funded budget of $24.4bn. But o…