Late Thursday night, Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS,” citing unspecified “bias” as justification.
The executive order, which attacks NPR and PBS as spreaders of “radical woke propaganda disguised as ‘news,’” who “receive millions from taxpayers,” doesn’t just concern direct funding. It also commands the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the publicly funded nonprofit that oversees NPR and PBS, along with other unnamed government agencies, to identify indirect sources of government funding that may go to those outlets.
Trump said in mid-April he would be asking congress to cut funding for the CPB, but no such bill has been submitted to the House of Representatives or the Senate.
NPR and PBS receive approximately half a billion dollars in public funding. This amounts to a small fraction of total funding for the media outlets however. For example, the largest source of funding for NPR– 36% — comes from corporate sponsorships. The second largest source — 30% — is via fees that local public stations pay for access to NPR programming.
Public funds amount to less than 1% of the money NPR directly receives from the U.S. government — though it receives slightly more public funds indirectly, as member stations also receive on average 10% of their budgets via public funding. Those funds likely will come under attack via the executive order.
Given that NPR and PBS funding is set by congress and that per the constitution and multiple related laws the President cannot unilaterally revoke laws passed by congress, it’s likely legal challenges to this order will follow.
Both outlets have long been targets for Trump, who on March 25 said during a White House press event that he “would love to do that,” and then complained that the outlets’ coverage is “unfair” and “very biased.”
The next day, congressional Republicans held a combative hearing in which, among other things, they accused PBS of using “taxpayer funds to push some of the most radical left positions.”
During the hearing, Paula Kerger, president and CEO of PBS, defended the outlet’s work saying in part, “PBS stations provide something that cannot be found on commercial networks. This is because PBS stations are focused on the needs and interests of the viewers they serve, especially in rural areas.”
Also at the hearing was NPR chief Katherine Maher, who attempted a conciliatory approach, asserting at one point that NPR was “mistaken in failing” to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story aggressively.
Maher, who assumed her role at NPR in 2024, also addressed politically charged tweets she posted in 2020 — which included describing Donald Trump as “fascist” and “deranged racist sociopath” — by disavowing them entirely.
“I regret those tweets. I would not tweet them again today. They represented a time where I was reflecting on something that I believe that the president had said, rather than who he is. I don’t presume that anyone is a racist,” she said. Trump’s latest executive order suggests this did not succeed in mollifying the President.
The executive order not only continues Trump’s attacks on media he deems unfriendly, but also his efforts to ideologically remake wide swaths of the federal government. In February for example, Trump fired several fired several board members of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and named himself chairman.
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