Trump orders Corporation for Public Broadcasting to end funding for NPR and PBS: 'Outdated and unnecessary'

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday directing the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and relevant agencies to terminate federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service — not exactly the news that socialists may have wanted to hear on May Day.

"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," wrote Trump. "The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding."

Trump also targeted the liberal outfits' indirect federal funding, directing the CPB — which has an operating budget of over $535 million for fiscal year 2025 — to ensure 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 loss of this indirect funding will be the more devastating.

While NPR claims that less than 1% of its annual operating budget comes in the form of grants directly from the CPB and other federal sources, multitudes of CPB-funded public radio stations in NPR's massive syndication network pay for its programming.

Blaze News previously reported that consolidated financial statements show that the organization secured over $96.1 million in "core and other programming fees" in 2023, $93.2 million in 2022, $90.4 million in 2021, and $92.5 million in 2020.

"These station programming fees are one of NPR's primary sources of revenue," noted the media outfit. "The loss of federal funding would undermine the stations' ability to pay NPR for programming, thereby weakening the institution."

PBS similarly receives taxpayer dollars indirectly from CPB-funded public TV stations that pay for its programming.

According to PBS, its flagship "News Hour" program, for instance, receives roughly 35% of its "annual funding/budget from CPB and PBS via national programming funds — a combination of CPB appropriation funds and annual programming dues paid to PBS by stations re-allocated to programs like ours."

A spokesman for PBS, which has over 330 member television stations, indicated earlier this year that the organization receives 16% of its funding directly from the federal government each year.

"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," Trump noted in his order, titled "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media."

That is certainly not the case with NPR and PBS.

The Media Research Center conducted a study from June 1, 2023, to Nov. 30, 2024, analyzing political labels used by anchors, reporters, and contributors on PBS' "News Hour." PBS staff threw around the term "far right" or some variation thereof 162 times but used the term "far left" only six times.

PBS reporters and guests routinely deemed social conservatives and Trump-adjacent Republicans as "extreme" or "extremists," and liberally applied the "fascist" label to Trump or his policies.

Meanwhile, the organization clamped down on unfavorable characterizations of failed presidential candidate Kamala Harris and other Democrats, writing the "Marxist" and "communist" labels off as "slurs."

Another MRC study published last year tallied every comment made by PBS journalists during the Republican and Democratic national conventions. Of the 191 minutes of PBS commentary on the Republican National Convention, 72% of opinionated comments were reportedly negative, and only 28% were positive. The PBS' DNC coverage was alternatively sycophantic.

NPR's bias is similarly so substantial that Peabody Award-winning business editor Uri Berliner was willing to throw away 25 years at the outfit just to call it out.

Berliner, a liberal who characterized himself as something akin to the stereotypical NPR listener — "an EV-driving, Wordle-playing, tote bag-carrying coastal elite" — noted in an April 2024 op-ed that NPR had effectively transformed into a Democratic propaganda machine, working strenuously to "damage or topple Trump's presidency," in part by "hitch[ing] our wagon to Trump's most visible antagonist, [then-]Representative Adam Schiff," and amplifying the Russia collusion hoax.

'Neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.'

In addition to boosting "Russiagate" propaganda, Berliner noted that NPR — where 87% of the Washington, D.C., editors and reporters were registered Democrats and none were registered Republicans — evidenced its unmistakable bias with its coverage of the COVID-19 lab leak theory and the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, both of which the network downplayed.

The White House highlighted other examples indicating an ideological bent at NPR, noting for instance that it:

• declared the Declaration of Independence to be a document with "flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies";
• apologized for calling illegal immigrants "illegal";
• concern-mongered about the choice of young men to abstain from masturbating to pornography;
• "routinely promotes the chemical and surgical mutilation of children as so-called 'gender-affirming care' without mentioning the irreversible damage caused by these procedures"; and
• "suggested doorway sizes are based on 'latent fatphobia.'"

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Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has long written about the need to defund public broadcasting, previously told Blaze News that NPR and PBS "gave up any attempt at appearing impartial or objective in any way," adding that in the case of NPR, the choice of Katherine Maher as CEO was a crystal-clear message that things won't soon change for the better.

"Maher, on the record, is calling Trump racist. She was an enthusiastic supporter of Kamala Harris," said Gonzalez. "She's on the record as saying the First Amendment and our obsession with truth is getting in the way of consensus. Well, gee — that's the CEO of NPR. Anything else you need to know?"

Trump noted that "no media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize."

"The CPB's governing statute reflects principles of impartiality: the CPB may not 'contribute to or otherwise support any political party,'" continued the president. "The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. 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 emphasizing the biased nature of NPR and PBS, Trump noted that the ubiquity of media alternatives precludes any need for taxpayers to continue the liberal outfits.

'Trump is working to ensure taxpayer dollars are no longer wasted on progressive pet projects.'

"Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence," added the president.

Trump further directed the heads of all federal agencies to "identify and terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS," and tasked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to investigate the liberal outfits for possible employment discrimination.

Trump gave the CPB board until June 30 to effectuate his order.

When NPR learned of a draft for the order, it stated earlier this month, "Eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would have a devastating impact on American communities across the nation that rely on public radio for trusted local and national news, culture, lifesaving emergency alerts, and public safety information."

"We serve the public interest. It's not just in our name — it's our mission. Across the country, locally owned public media stations represent a proud American tradition of public-private partnership for our shared common good," added the liberal outfit.

PBS CEO Paula Kerger reportedly said last month than an order to defund her organization would "disrupt the essential service PBS and local member stations provide to the American people."

The CPB, which is not a federal agency, has already filed suit against Trump because the White House attempted to fire three of its board members.

"Because CPB is not a federal agency subject to the President's authority, but rather a private corporation, we have filed a lawsuit to block these firings," the corporation said in a statement obtained by CNN.

The CPB is likely to seek to block this effort as well.

The White House noted that "President Trump is working to ensure taxpayer dollars are no longer wasted on progressive pet projects, but rather used to benefit hardworking Americans."

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