Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't

President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's board of directors to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS," the nation's primary public broadcasters, claiming ideological bias.

"Neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens," the order says. "The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding."

It is not clear that the president has the authority to make such orders to CPB under the law.

PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger called it a "blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night."
CPB is already suing the Trump administration over his executive order seeking to fire three of its five board members; on Friday, it dismissed the validity of the president's new order.

"CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President's authority," the corporation wrote in a statement issued Friday morning. "Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government."

The CPB noted that the statute Congress passed to create it "expressly forbade '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." Congress said that recipients of such funds "may be used at the discretion of the recipient" for producing or acquiring programs to put on the air.

Trump's newest order appears to envision a continuation of federal subsidies for public radio and television stations — apart from NPR and PBS. It is unclear how that squares with Trump's pledge to ask Congress to rescind all funds already approved for public broadcasting.

What this means for LAist

Congress allocates federal funding for CPB and specifies how it shall be spent. The funding is carried out in two-year cycles, ahead of time, a structure designed to help shield public media from political pressure.

Trump, by contrast, has waged rhetorical warfare against it, fueling and channeling his supporters' distrust of traditional newsgathering.

On social media platforms, Trump recently blasted the two national public broadcasting networks, posting in all caps: "REPUBLICANS MUST DEFUND AND TOTALLY DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES FROM NPR & PBS, THE RADICAL LEFT 'MONSTERS' THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!"

NPR vowed to fight back in a statement released Friday by Heather Walls, its senior vice president of communications.

"We will vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public," NPR said in the statement. "The President's order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities."

It said the executive order jeopardizes the national airing of NPR newscasts, and programs like Morning Edition and Tiny Desk Radio.

Accusations of political bias

The leaders of NPR and PBS testified at a House oversight committee hearing in March on allegations of ideological bias in public broadcasting.

Republican lawmakers assailed Maher for political messages she had posted to social media years before she joined NPR in March 2024, as well as news decisions the network made largely before her tenure.

PBS' Kerger found herself queried about a video involving a performer in drag singing a variation on a children's song for a young audience. (Kerger testified that the video was posted on the website of PBS' New York City member station and never aired on television.)

Earlier this week, the Federal Election Commission unanimously dismissed a complaint of bias and illegal electioneering against NPR, finding that the network is engaged in a "legitimate press function."

How federal funds reach NPR and PBS

Federal funding for public media flows through the congressionally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Congress allocated $535 million for the CPB for the current fiscal year — an amount affirmed in a recent stop-gap bill passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. House and Senate.

According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Congress has fully funded it through Sept 30, 2027.

At the hearing in late March, heads of both networks spoke of the mission to provide nonpartisan news and programming to the American public, without charge. They said stations would be most vulnerable if federal funding was cut off for public broadcasting.
NPR typically receives about 1% of its funding directly from the federal government, and a slightly greater amount indirectly; its 246 member institutions, operating more than 1,000 stations, receive on average 8% to 10% of their funds from CPB.

By contrast, PBS and its stations receive about 15% of their revenues from CPB's federal funds.

Most of the funds for public media go to local stations; and most to subsidize television, which is more expensive than radio.

A government investigation of public broadcasters

The Trump administration's assault on public media began just weeks after his inauguration. Trump's appointee as the nation's chief broadcast regulator, Federal Communications Commission Chairperson Brendan Carr, launched an investigation of NPR and PBS, contending it appears that their corporate underwriting spots violate laws banning commercial advertisements. Carr has used it to question federal funding of the networks and their non-commercial status.
The networks say they have been encouraged repeatedly by the agency and Congress to develop private financial support and have worked assiduously for years with the FCC to ensure that content falls within FCC guidelines.

PBS offers a heavy amount of educational fare; NPR relies more on news and music. Both provide locally grounded content and reach more than 99% of the population, at no cost. In many states and communities, the stations also serve as a key component of emergency and disaster response systems.

While the CPB is suing the Trump administration over the attempted firings of three of the five board members, were Trump to succeed in doing so, it would appear he would have, for now, erased the quorum necessary for the CPB board to take any actions. That includes, presumably, the elimination of funds for PBS and NPR.

Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp, Managing Editor Gerry Holmes and Managing Editor Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR's protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.