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CNN
2 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Trump asked Congress to claw back funding for PBS and NPR. What now?
America's two big public broadcasters, PBS and NPR, have 45 days to salvage their federal funding — starting now. On Tuesday, the Trump administration sent Congress a long-awaited request for lawmakers to cancel more than $1 billion in federal funds earmarked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that disburses taxpayer funds to local NPR and PBS stations across the country. The request, known as a 'rescission package,' starts a 45-day clock for Congress to either approve or ignore the proposal. Rescinding the funds only requires a simple majority, which means in this case that no Democratic votes are needed. However, Republicans only have slim majorities in both the House and Senate, and public media executives are cautiously hopeful that they can convince some Republican moderates to ignore the White House's proposal, thereby killing it. Get THE Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. White House budget director Russ Vought said on Fox News Tuesday afternoon that the House will be 'putting this on the floor next week.' Vought also warned, 'If it doesn't pass, we have to then release the funds and it has to be spent.' The 45-day period will end on July 18. Until then, PBS and NPR officials will be lobbying lawmakers and counting votes. NPR said its lobbying efforts will start on the House side, 'where we expect the memo to be first taken up,' CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement. 'During this fight we will demonstrate our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day for free,' PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in a separate statement. The funds being targeted now were allocated by the Republican-controlled Congress in a bill that Trump signed into law earlier this spring but haven't been spent yet because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is budgeted two years in advance. Trump, tapping into long-held conservative beliefs that NPR and PBS are biased in favor of liberals, is now trying to strip away the future funding and score a political win. Kerger said it would be a loss for the public at large. 'The proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities,' she said, 'particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets. Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.' The Trump White House has targeted public media on multiple fronts in recent weeks. The president signed an executive order in early May directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding PBS and NPR. He also tried to fire three of the corporation's board members. The corporation has essentially ignored him, however, because it is a private nonprofit entity set up by Congress and historically insulated from presidential interference. The entity has filed suit with the hopes that a federal court will affirm its independence. Both NPR and PBS have also filed separate lawsuits accusing the administration of violating the First Amendment. All three cases have been assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss. Furthermore, the Federal Communications Commission is conducting a probe into NPR and PBS member stations, citing concerns that public media underwriting messages may be violating federal law. But of all the attempts to target public media this year, Tuesday's proposal stands out. 'This rescission proposal is the most serious threat ever faced by public broadcasting,' Maher wrote in her statement. 'We urge Congress to act in the interest of their constituents and save public broadcasting.'
CNN
2 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Trump asked Congress to claw back funding for PBS and NPR. What now?
America's two big public broadcasters, PBS and NPR, have 45 days to salvage their federal funding — starting now. On Tuesday, the Trump administration sent Congress a long-awaited request for lawmakers to cancel more than $1 billion in federal funds earmarked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that disburses taxpayer funds to local NPR and PBS stations across the country. The request, known as a 'rescission package,' starts a 45-day clock for Congress to either approve or ignore the proposal. Rescinding the funds only requires a simple majority, which means in this case that no Democratic votes are needed. However, Republicans only have slim majorities in both the House and Senate, and public media executives are cautiously hopeful that they can convince some Republican moderates to ignore the White House's proposal, thereby killing it. Get THE Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. White House budget director Russ Vought said on Fox News Tuesday afternoon that the House will be 'putting this on the floor next week.' Vought also warned, 'If it doesn't pass, we have to then release the funds and it has to be spent.' The 45-day period will end on July 18. Until then, PBS and NPR officials will be lobbying lawmakers and counting votes. NPR said its lobbying efforts will start on the House side, 'where we expect the memo to be first taken up,' CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement. 'During this fight we will demonstrate our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day for free,' PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in a separate statement. The funds being targeted now were allocated by the Republican-controlled Congress in a bill that Trump signed into law earlier this spring but haven't been spent yet because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is budgeted two years in advance. Trump, tapping into long-held conservative beliefs that NPR and PBS are biased in favor of liberals, is now trying to strip away the future funding and score a political win. Kerger said it would be a loss for the public at large. 'The proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities,' she said, 'particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets. Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.' The Trump White House has targeted public media on multiple fronts in recent weeks. The president signed an executive order in early May directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding PBS and NPR. He also tried to fire three of the corporation's board members. The corporation has essentially ignored him, however, because it is a private nonprofit entity set up by Congress and historically insulated from presidential interference. The entity has filed suit with the hopes that a federal court will affirm its independence. Both NPR and PBS have also filed separate lawsuits accusing the administration of violating the First Amendment. All three cases have been assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss. Furthermore, the Federal Communications Commission is conducting a probe into NPR and PBS member stations, citing concerns that public media underwriting messages may be violating federal law. But of all the attempts to target public media this year, Tuesday's proposal stands out. 'This rescission proposal is the most serious threat ever faced by public broadcasting,' Maher wrote in her statement. 'We urge Congress to act in the interest of their constituents and save public broadcasting.'
CNN
2 days ago
- Business
- CNN
Trump asked Congress to claw back funding for PBS and NPR. What now?
America's two big public broadcasters, PBS and NPR, have 45 days to salvage their federal funding — starting now. On Tuesday, the Trump administration sent Congress a long-awaited request for lawmakers to cancel more than $1 billion in federal funds earmarked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that disburses taxpayer funds to local NPR and PBS stations across the country. The request, known as a 'rescission package,' starts a 45-day clock for Congress to either approve or ignore the proposal. Rescinding the funds only requires a simple majority, which means in this case that no Democratic votes are needed. However, Republicans only have slim majorities in both the House and Senate, and public media executives are cautiously hopeful that they can convince some Republican moderates to ignore the White House's proposal, thereby killing it. Get THE Reliable Sources newsletter Sign up here to receive Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter in your inbox. White House budget director Russ Vought said on Fox News Tuesday afternoon that the House will be 'putting this on the floor next week.' Vought also warned, 'If it doesn't pass, we have to then release the funds and it has to be spent.' The 45-day period will end on July 18. Until then, PBS and NPR officials will be lobbying lawmakers and counting votes. NPR said its lobbying efforts will start on the House side, 'where we expect the memo to be first taken up,' CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement. 'During this fight we will demonstrate our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day for free,' PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in a separate statement. The funds being targeted now were allocated by the Republican-controlled Congress in a bill that Trump signed into law earlier this spring, but haven't been spent yet because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is budgeted two years in advance. Trump, tapping into long-held conservative beliefs that NPR and PBS are biased in favor of liberals, is now trying to strip away the future funding and score a political win. Kerger said it would be a loss for the public at large. 'The proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities,' she said, 'particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets. Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.' The Trump White House has targeted public media on multiple fronts in recent weeks. The president signed an executive order in early May directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding PBS and NPR. He also tried to fire three of the corporation's board members. The corporation has essentially ignored him, however, because it is a private nonprofit entity set up by Congress and historically insulated from presidential interference. The entity has filed suit with the hopes that a federal court will affirm its independence. Both NPR and PBS have also filed separate lawsuits accusing the administration of violating the First Amendment. All three cases have been assigned to Judge Randolph D. Moss. Furthermore, the Federal Communications Commission is conducting a probe into NPR and PBS member stations, citing concerns that public media underwriting messages may be violating federal law. But of all the attempts to target public media this year, Tuesday's proposal stands out. 'This rescission proposal is the most serious threat ever faced by public broadcasting,' Maher wrote in her statement. 'We urge Congress to act in the interest of their constituents and save public broadcasting.'
Fox News
3 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
Why it's time to pull the plug on NPR and PBS
In just a few short months, President Donald Trump has delivered like no president before, leading a seismic governmental realignment back toward accountability, efficiency and America First values. He's carrying out the agenda Americans elected him to do in November. In Congress, we have a duty to act with urgency and resolve to provide the legislative backup that the commander in chief needs. On the House Oversight DOGE Subcommittee, where we are working to identify and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse of federal funds, I am laser-focused on rescinding every dollar of federal funding for state-sponsored media. This is the Land of the Free, not China, Russia or North Korea, and yet over $535 million in taxpayer dollars keep National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) spewing leftist activism and labeling it journalism. In a recent DOGE hearing, I confronted NPR's CEO Katherine Maher on her radical past. What the American people saw was stunning. Under oath, the head of NPR couldn't explain away her old incriminating tweets – some citing her support for racial reparations, racism against White men and downplaying the violence of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020. Her record reads like a Marxist playbook. Her answers were evasive, her tone defiant and her priorities decidedly un-American. When pressed about double standards in NPR's news coverage, she dodged accountability, insisting NPR is fair and balanced – while the facts tell a different story. Under the misnomer of being "news," NPR has blasted fear of "fatness," defended censorship, platformed disinformation and actively blacklisted dissenting conservative voices. It's no wonder that Maher was chosen to spearhead NPR's agenda of relentless bias, as scathingly exposed by former NPR editor Uri Berliner. Let's be clear: NPR and the federally funded Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) aren't neutral media institutions. They are propaganda machines forcing a worldview that sneers at middle America, celebrates fringe ideology and defends the very institutions that have failed everyday Americans. PBS has repeatedly pushed critical race theory and gender ideology in the classroom, exposing minors to salacious drag queen programming – all on the taxpayer's dime. The days of using our tax dollars on state-sponsored propaganda are coming to a harsh end. I applaud and thank President Trump for his leadership on this critical issue by ending funding for NPR and PBS via executive action. Now, Congress must back up Trump's agenda and use every tool at our disposal to defund these outlets permanently. That begins by immediately passing a rescissions package to claw back every last cent of the over $1 billion in future funding already earmarked for NPR and PBS. These funds are sitting in the pipeline – approved years in advance, quietly shielded from scrutiny. We can, and we must, cut it. I commend Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., for supporting this fight and backing our effort to end federal support for these propaganda outlets. But Congress must bring a rescissions package to the House floor as soon as possible. President Trump has called for bold, historic cuts to the bloated federal bureaucracy. Defunding NPR and PBS is one of the most commonsense places to start. These aren't just budget line items – they're symbols of everything Americans can't stand about Washington: elitism, bias and unaccountable institutions feeding off taxpayer largesse. This isn't solely about clawing back past funding. We must pursue long-term legislative reforms to block future appropriations to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) – both direct and indirect. Public radio and television stations shouldn't serve as backdoor funding vehicles for partisan advocacy. I'm proud to lead this fight alongside the president, the speaker, my colleagues in Congress and on behalf of the tens of millions of Americans who are sick of seeing their hard-earned dollars hijacked to underwrite the Left's culture war. Let's finish what we started. Let's pass the rescissions package. Let's end taxpayer-funded propaganda. And let's remind Washington that the American people are no longer footing the bill for their own humiliation. It's time to defund NPR and PBS – for good.
Fox News
7 days ago
- Business
- Fox News
NPR CEO rips Trump order to defund as ‘retaliation,' insists media outlet is 'non-partisan'
NPR CEO Katherine Maher assured PBS on Wednesday that her outlet is "non-partisan" following President Donald Trump's latest executive order seeking to defund the station. In an interview on "PBS NewsHour," the NPR boss trashed Trump's executive order to "cease Federal funding for NPR," calling it "viewpoint discrimination" and saying that Trump is just taking it out on NPR because it goes against his views. "And so, it is a textbook example of viewpoint discrimination from a First Amendment standpoint," she said, adding, "Essentially, by blocking funding to NPR and PBS, it is a form of retaliation against our organizations for airing editorial programming that the president might disagree with." Trump signed the order earlier this month which mandated that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies stop funding NPR and other public media outlets like PBS. The text of the order read, "NPR and PBS have fueled partisanship and left-wing propaganda with taxpayer dollars, which is highly inappropriate and an improper use of taxpayers' money, as President Trump has stated." Maher's outlet, joined by three public Colorado stations — Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT — filed a lawsuit against the order in federal court on Tuesday. In a statement, the NPR CEO said, "The Executive Order is a clear violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment's protections for freedom of speech and association, and freedom of the press." During the PBS interview on Wednesday, Maher suggested that Trump's executive order violated "safeguards" established by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 that keep "public media independent from government influence." PBS has not joined NPR's suit but said it is weighing legal options, among others. "PBS is considering every option, including taking legal action, to allow our organization to continue to provide essential programming and services to member stations and all Americans," PBS spokesman Jeremy Gaines said earlier this week. PBS NewsHour anchor Geoff Bennett asked Maher about accusations that NPR promotes a liberal bias, bringing up Republicans' claims, as well as those of former NPR editor Uri Berliner. Berliner, who quit NPR in 2024, blew the whistle on the outlet in an essay for The Free Press that same year, slamming NPR for its "absence of viewpoint diversity." Maher responded to the critiques, declaring, "Well, first of all, I respond by saying we're a non-partisan news organization. We seek to be able to provide a range of different viewpoints in terms of who we bring on air, the stories that we tell." "My view is that is a mischaracterization of our work. We do not seek to favor any political party at all. We seek to ensure that Americans have a wide range of perspectives available to them," she added. In response to Maher's comments, a White House spokesperson told Fox News Digital: "The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers' dime. Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS. The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective."
