Do we like them?

Do we like Christopher T. Hanson?

Our score: 7 out of 10. A clean record on harm and a public servant who stood his ground, but little evidence either way on LGBTQ+ issues or personal conduct.

Hanson is a nuclear safety regulator, which is not the usual celeb-check fare. He joined the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2020 when Donald Trump appointed him, and Joe Biden reappointed him in 2024 for a term that ran to 2029. That's a bloke who got picked by both sides of politics, which says something about how he did the job.

The big story is how it ended. In June 2025 the White House emailed him that his position was terminated effective immediately, and he said he'd been fired without cause. A White House spokesperson said all organisations work better when leaders are rowing in the same direction, and that the President can remove employees who exert his executive authority.

Hanson said he'd spent his term preserving the agency's independence and bipartisan character. A group of former NRC staff, including a former chair, then wrote to the commission calling the sacking unprecedented and saying it endangered the NRC's independence. Where you land depends on whether you see it as a boss choosing his own team or political interference in a safety watchdog.

On the harm test, we found nothing. No remarks about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants or the climate, no conspiracy theories, no grievance spiral, and no shady company on a film poster. That's partly because his work is dry regulatory stuff, so be aware the record says little about how he'd stand on the issues you care about most.

The good-stuff file is mostly his public service. A nuclear safety campaigner at the Union of Concerned Scientists called him a dedicated public servant who backed the agency's public health and safety mission. No court cases, misconduct allegations or staff complaints turned up in what we read.

Nothing new on him lately: the sacking is the latest big thing we found, and we couldn't confirm any lawsuit or later development. So it's a supportive but modest yes. He did his job, copped the sack for it, and there's no sign of harm anywhere.