NASA reveals how it feels about Trump’s intervention in astronauts’ return

NASA declared a “huge win for the Trump administration” with a key point about President Donald Trump’s “intervention” in the successful return of two stranded astronauts.

(Video Credit: Fox News Digital)

Last week, a splashdown in the Gulf of America marked the completion of a roughly week-long mission that had been unexpectedly extended to nine months for NASA astronauts Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita “Suni” Williams. While SpaceX CEO Elon Musk readily faulted the Biden administration’s inaction to recover the astronauts over “political reasons,” NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens explained the credit in their return was owed to Trump.

“This is a huge win for the Trump administration,” she told Fox News Digital during an interview. “And it would not have happened without President Trump’s intervention.”

As had been reported, Musk told Fox News’ Sean Hannity that the offer had been extended to the Biden administration to recover the astronauts from the International Space Station after issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft had resulted in their being left behind.

“We definitely offered to return the astronauts earlier,” explained the billionaire. “There’s no question about that. The astronauts were only supposed to be up there for eight days, and they’ve been there for almost 10 months. So obviously that doesn’t make any sense. SpaceX could have brought the astronauts back after a few months at most. And we made that offer to the Biden administration. It was rejected for political reasons, and that’s just a fact.”

Seeking to make things right, the matter of overtime pay was brought to the president’s attention by Fox News senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy, an amount estimated to be around $1,400 for each astronaut, to which Trump said, “Nobody’s ever mentioned this to me. If I have to, I’ll pay it out of my own pocket.”

“Is that all? That’s not a lot for what they had to go through,” he added before describing, “Even though they’re in the capsule up there, the body starts to deteriorate after nine or 10 months and gets really bad after 14, 15 months, with the bones and the blood and all of the things that you’ve been reporting on very well.”

Trump vows stranded astronauts will get overtime pay, even if HE has to pay it https://t.co/9UIWcd5SwH via @BIZPACReview

— BPR based (@DumpstrFireNews) March 22, 2025

Looking ahead to “Mars and beyond,” Stevens spoke to the next mile marker for the administration, “Up next on the docket, to continue implementing President Trump’s ambitious space agenda — that he touted in his inaugural address — is to confirm his nominee for NASA administrator, Jared Isaacman.”

“Mr. Isaacman was the very first civilian to do a human spacewalk,” in addition to being a humanitarian and an “outsider,” the spokeswoman said of the entrepreneur who’d helped raise hundreds of millions of dollars for St. Jude with his own trip to space.

“President Trump was also once considered an outsider, and the American people have put him back into office, just showing how much they appreciate the business side that he brings to the table. And Mr. Isaacman also has a background as an entrepreneur of an extremely successful business,” she continued. “I believe that he is well-suited, as do 30 astronauts who wrote in support of him and multiple GOP governors, that he is well-suited to take the helm here at NASA and to implement the president’s agenda.”

Governors Greg Abbott of Texas, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mike Kehoe of Missouri, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Bill Lee of Tennessee, Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas and Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma all voiced their support for Isaacman in a letter addressed to the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee’s Chair Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R) and ranking member Indiana Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) calling for a “swift” confirmation.

“We were going to go to the moon and to Mars and beyond, and we have less than four years at this point to get through that considerably ambitious agenda,” Stevens expressed. “And we need to implement his leadership here at NASA in order to get the ball rolling there. So I think that’s the next step towards being America First in Space.”

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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