Scientists are notorious for believing in things like observable reality, truth, scientific and academic integrity, etc. That puts them in opposition to the people currently running the US government — who absolutely do not want "experts" pointing-out the deficiencies in their policies and scams.
Ron Suskind's quote of a Bush2-era politician sums it up:
"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' [...] 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do'." [1]
Trump etc want to create a non-reality reality in which their grift and social engineering are so normal that they're unnoticed. Their contempt for, and dismantling of science, is part of that.