The White House’s war against NPR and PBS escalated Tuesday after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced that one of its key federal grant programs was terminated.
In a statement Tuesday, CPB, which backs NPR and PBS, announced that the Department of Education had slashed a federal grant program that has funded children’s shows like Sesame Street in the past.
The move came a few days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding CPB to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS over distributing content he believes promote leftwing bias.
The grant program, called Ready To Learn, would have administered $23 million into children’s educational shows and games. Along with Sesame Street, grants from Ready To Learn have helped Reading Rainbow, and Clifford the Big Red Dog. The current grant helps the award-winning Molly of Denali, Work It Out Wombats! and Lyla in the Loop.
“On Friday night, the U.S. Department of Education notified the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that its 2020-2025 Ready To Learn grant is terminated, effective immediately,” the corporation wrote in a press statement posted to its website. “On Sunday, CPB informed PBS and 44 public media stations in 28 states and the District of Columbia that receive Ready To Learn grants to stop work immediately, pausing the program in rural and urban communities throughout the country.”
The president and CEO of CPB, Patricia Harrison, also released a statement Tuesday clarifying the corporation’s intent to “work with” Congress and the Trump administration to save the federal grant program.
“Nearly every parent has raised their kids on public broadcasting’s children’s content. For the past 30 years, Ready To Learn-funded PBS KIDS content has produced measurable, real-world impacts on children’s learning,” Harrison said. “Ready To Learn has received strong bipartisan support from Congress for the last 30 years because of the programs’ proven educational value in advancing early learning skills for all children. We will work with Congress and the Administration to preserve funding for this essential program.”
The grant was slated to expire in September.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education, Madi Biedermann, told The New York Times in a statement Tuesday that the grant was funding “racial justice educational programming.”
“The Trump Department of Education will prioritize funding that supports meaningful learning and improving student outcomes, not divisive ideologies and woke propaganda,” the statement continued.
In his executive order last week, Trump ordered federal agencies to terminate all direct or indirect funding to NPR and PBS. The White House subsequently criticized the two institutions for fueling “partisanship and left-wing propaganda” in a follow-up fact sheet and criticized them for pushing “progressive pet projects.”
The administration even listed Sesame Street as an example by name and criticized the long-running program for partnering with CNN for “a town hall aimed presenting children with a one-sided narrative to “address racism” amid the Black Lives Matter riots.”
Both NPR and PBS have vowed to fight back against Trump’s order, with PBS chief executive Paula Kreger calling the move “blatantly unlawful” in a Friday statement and promising to explore “all options.”
The Trump administration has been campaigning against NPR and PBS for some time, slamming the two institutions for a long list of ailments as recently as April.
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