President Trump signed an executive order late Thursday night terminating federal funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
NPR and PBS, which have long been targeted for cuts by conservatives, both receive partial funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which the president argued is unnecessary in the current media environment.
“Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence,” Trump wrote in the order.
“The CPB Board shall cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration’s policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage,” he added. “The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.”
Trump further directed the CPB to end indirect funding to NPR and PBS, including by “ensuring that licensees and permittees of public radio and television stations, as well as any other recipients of CPB funds, do not use Federal funds for NPR and PBS.”
The president gave the CPB until June 30 to effectuate his directive.
NPR and PBS both have diverse revenue streams, including major foundation grants, advertising and voluntary viewer and listener donations, meaning that neither is likely to cease operations if they lose federal support.
The CPB is set to receive $535 million in congressionally appropriated funds annually to distribute to public broadcasters in 2025 and 2026.
PBS and its member stations receive about 15% of their revenues from the CPB, while NPR stations get 10% of their funds from the corporation, according to NPR.
NPR itself only receives 1% directly from CPB.
Trump had previously called for NPR and PBS to be defunded in a March Truth Social post.
“NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms … should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote on March 27.
In his late-night order, the president argued that “Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.”
“No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.”
A White House fact sheet on the order suggested that the left-leaning networks’ output acts as a “significant in-kind contributions to the Democrat party and its political cause,” therefore violating the CPB’s legal mandate to be “nonpolitical [in] nature.”
“The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS,” the order stated. “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
In addition to eliminating CPB payments to NPR and PBS, Trump ordered all federal agencies to “identify and terminate” any taxpayer money going to the public broadcasters.
Trump also tasked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with determining whether PBS and NPR “are complying with the statutory mandate that ‘no person shall be subjected to discrimination in employment . . . on the grounds of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.’”
“In the event of a finding of noncompliance, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall take appropriate corrective action,” the order read.
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