Partisan battle lines form over Trump's plan to defund NPR & PBS

As GOP congressional leaders are vowing to move full steam ahead to approve President Trump's request to eliminate all federal funding for public media for the next two years, a group of 29 Senate Democrats are warning the broadcast outlets should be "protected, not decimated."

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader John Thune, these senators argue the proposed clawback of money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) "would have detrimental effects on local stations, which rely on this funding to provide critical services to millions of Americans across the country."

The effort comes a day after the Trump administration formally requested Congress approve a $9.4 billion rescissions bill. The proposal includes $8.3 billion in cuts to foreign aid and $1.1 billion in cuts to public broadcasting. CPB distributes that funding to NPR and PBS and their member stations across the country. Congress approved the funding for the next two years for the public-private entity as part of the government funding bill Trump signed in March.

Most Capitol Hill Republicans express support for the package, but a few have raised concerns about some of the cuts to State Department programs. Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, told reporters she could not back the proposed cuts to PEPFAR, a public health program created by President George W. Bush to address HIV/AIDS. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the chamber would act on the package soon. Under the rescissions rules, Congress has 45 days to act. The House is scheduled to vote first next week. The Senate can then approve the package with a simple majority. With the GOP holding a 53-seat majority in the upper chamber, it's unclear if there are four Republican votes to block the package.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters on Wednesday "these are common sense cuts." He criticized news coverage by both NPR and PBS as ideologically biased, asserting, "There is no reason for any media organization to be singled out to receive federal funds. We're in a different era now."

GOP leaders say the House will vote on the package next week. Senior Republicans told NPR they believed the bill would pass.

The Democratic senators' letter notes the "vast majority" of CPB money is allocated to local public radio and television stations. They say the cuts "will have an immediate and significant impact for stations in rural communities that heavily rely on CPB funding to provide critical services and could likely result in the elimination of programming or outright closure of stations in areas already faced with limited connectivity." They urge Thune to maintain "full funding" for CPB.

Trump has called NPR and PBS "THE RADICAL LEFT 'MONSTERS'" and denounced their news coverage and cultural programming. NPR's chief executive, Katherine Maher, hinted on Tuesday that the network might consider filing suit if Congress passes the rescissions package. NPR would not address what its legal strategy would be if that happens.

"The proposal, which is explicitly viewpoint-based and aimed at controlling and punishing content, violates the Public Broadcasting Act, the First Amendment, and the Due Process Clause," Maher said in a statement.

No Senate Republican signed the letter, led by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., but Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski voiced support for public media in an editorial in the Fairbanks Daily News Miner earlier this month. She said the loss of funding for local stations in her home state would be "devastating."

"Not only would a large portion of Alaska communities lose their local programming, but warning systems for natural disasters, power outages, boil water advisories, and other alerts would be severely hampered. What may seem like a frivolous expense to some has proven to be an invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska," Murkowski wrote.

A group of 104 House Democrats led by New York Rep. Dan Goldman, sent a letter on Tuesday to the top Republican and Democrat on the House spending panel that oversees CPB. "Without federal support for public broadcasting, many localities would struggle to receive timely, reliable local news and educational content, especially remote and rural communities that commercial newsrooms are increasingly less likely to invest in," the lawmakers wrote.

Trump separately moved to defund public broadcasting outlets by issuing an executive order last month instructing CPB to stop releasing money to NPR and PBS. NPR and a group of local stations sued the administration, arguing the order was unconstitutional. Separately PBS and one of its member stations in Minnesota also filed suit to block the order.

Heads of both NPR and PBS testified before a House oversight panel and maintained that cutting funding for CPB would especially hit rural stations the most - where communities don't have other private media outlets to report on national news, but also on important local stories like natural disasters. After the rescissions package was delivered to Capitol Hill on Tuesday the leaders pushed back against the funding clawback effort.

Disclosure: This story was written and reported by NPR Congressional Correspondent Deirdre Walsh and NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Managing Editor Gerry Holmes.  Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.

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