President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease federal funding for PBS and NPR, accusing the public broadcasters of ideological bias.
The move has sparked swift backlash from the organizations, which called the order “blatantly unlawful” and vowed to challenge it legally.
The executive order instructs the CPB board to “cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law” and to “decline to provide future funding” to NPR and PBS. Trump’s order claims that neither NPR nor PBS “presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens.”
About 1% of NPR’s funding comes directly from the federal government, while about 15% of PBS’ funding is federally subsidized.
PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger condemned the order, calling it a “blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night,” that “threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” Fox News reported. She added that PBS is “exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans.”
The CPB, which receives about $535 million in federal funds annually, primarily distributes these funds as grants to hundreds of local stations that produce their own programs or purchase content like NPR’s All Things Considered or PBS NewsHour, NPR reported.
CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison argued that the corporation is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority, stating, “Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” per Fox News.
She also noted that federal law expressly forbids “any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors.”
Legal challenges are already underway.
The CPB is currently suing the Trump administration over a separate executive order attempting to fire three of its five board members. NPR noted that this action could eliminate the quorum needed for the CPB board to act, including on funding decisions. If successful, it could hinder the implementation of Trump’s latest order.
Trump’s order also directs the CPB to ensure that local stations receiving grants “do not use Federal funds for NPR and PBS.” Additionally, it instructs all federal agencies to “identify and terminate” any funding to the two broadcasters. However, the order appears to allow for continued federal subsidies to public radio and television stations, apart from NPR and PBS.
The funding structure for public media, established by Congress, operates on two-year cycles to shield it from political pressure. Trump’s repeated criticism of NPR and PBS, including a recent social media post in all caps calling for Republicans to “DEFUND AND TOTALLY DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES FROM NPR & PBS, THE RADICAL LEFT ‘MONSTERS’ THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!” has fueled his supporters’ distrust of traditional media.