Trump asks Congress to claw back $1.1 billion from public media

DENVER — President Donald Trump is asking Congress to rescind more than $1 billion previously slated for PBS and NPR.

If approved by a simple majority in both chambers of Congress, this clawback — called a rescission — would end nearly all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which manages and distributes government funding to public media stations across the country.

The House and Senate have 45 days to approve the rescission request. The potential cuts to public media funding are part of a larger rescission package that also seeks to cancel more than $8 billion in previously approved foreign aid initiatives.

In a statement Tuesday, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said, “The proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities, particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets. Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.   

“This rescission would have a negligible impact on reducing the deficit and provide little-to-no savings for taxpayers, yet it would harm all Americans, shutting off access to local news, national reporting, music and regional culture, and emergency alerting,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher said in a statement.

President Trump repeatedly tried and failed to reduce funding for public broadcasting during his first term in office. Even when Republicans controlled all three branches of government — as they do now — funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting survived due in part to support from a relative handful of Republican lawmakers.

The rescission bill’s passage is not guaranteed. “Nebraska public media does a good job, so I’m not inclined,” Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, told Politico in May. Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican, also announced her support for federal dollars for public broadcasting. However, the White House budget director, Russ Vought, said he was confident the rescission bill would pass.

“Now is the time to stand up and make your voice heard,” Rocky Mountain Public Media CEO Amanda Mountain said. “Contact your congresspeople urgently and demand they vote no on this rescission package. It’s up to all of us to protect public media today, and tomorrow for generations of Coloradans to come.”

Public media station leaders have said that a loss of federal funding would threaten the viability of their organizations. Rural and tribal public media stations, which tend to receive a higher proportion of their budget from the federal government compared to stations in urban areas, are particularly at risk.

“We live in a literal news desert,” said Tami Graham, executive director of KSUT, a public radio station serving the Four Corners region. “In some places, we were the only connection people had to what was happening.”

Both NPR and PBS have sued the Trump administration separately over the president’s executive order that directs CPB to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

Three Colorado public radio stations — KSUT, Aspen Public Radio and Colorado Public Radio — are plaintiffs in NPR’s lawsuit against the Trump administration. 

Lakeland PBS, a small station in northern Minnesota, joined PBS’ lawsuit.

Rocky Mountain Public Media, which holds both PBS and NPR licenses, is not a plaintiff in either suit.  

Republican presidents and members of Congress have tried to end support for public media for nearly as long as PBS and NPR have existed. Congress created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 1967. Every Republican president since Richard Nixon has advocated for reducing — or ending — CPB’s funding.

Those advocating for the end of federal funding have accused public media stations of holding a left-wing bias. “These partisan, so-called ‘media’ stations dropped the ball on Hunter Biden’s laptop, down-played COVID-19 origins, and failed to properly report the Russian collusion hoax,” said Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who chairs the House DOGE subcommittee.

Despite accusations of bias, PBS in particular enjoys strong bipartisan support from the public. The broadcaster was named the most trusted media organization in a 2022 nationwide survey and a Rasmussen Reports national survey from 2017 found that only 21% of Americans — including less than a third of Republicans — favored ending federal support for public broadcasting.

“There’s nothing more American than PBS, and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress,” Kerger said in a statement.

Many public media stations fear that if federal funding dissolves, they will have to cut their programming.

Rocky Mountain Public Media, which includes Rocky Mountain PBS, KUVO JAZZ (an NPR music station) and THE DROP, receives approximately 10% of its operating budget from federal funding.

According to a federal funding fact sheet from RMPM, “loss of federal funding would hinder our work, especially in serving our neighbors in every corner of our state with journalism and programs that are freely accessible to all.” 

Colorado Public Radio, meanwhile, expects that about 5% of their projected revenue for this fiscal year will come from CPB.