2 days ago
Trump's $1.1 Billion Public Broadcasting Clawback Faces Pushback in the Senate
Dakota Talk Radio in the tiny town of Lake Andes, S.D., is one of dozens of rural radio stations across the United States that could see more than half of its budget vanish.
The station in Unalakleet, Alaska, a remote village in the western Arctic, could lose more than 90 percent of its funding.
And the sole station broadcasting to the Aaniiih and Nakoda Native nations in Harlem, Mont., stands to have its entire budget obliterated.
President Trump's plan to claw back $9 billion in spending already approved by Congress, which Republicans pushed through the House this week and is pending in the Senate, would slash $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The organization funds more than 1,500 public television and radio stations across the country, including NPR and PBS stations.
Many of those stations are in red districts and states, and the cuts have prompted substantial pushback from Republicans, imperiling the bill and highlighting a broader fight between an administration bent on slashing federal funding and the lawmakers confronting the impact of those cuts.
G.O.P. opposition to the public broadcasting cuts helped to nearly sink the bill in the House on Thursday, when Speaker Mike Johnson had to wrangle two Republicans on the floor to change their 'no' votes. Now, as the Senate prepares to take it up, Republicans in that chamber are raising the same concerns.
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