President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday to end public funding of National Public Radio and PBS to stop what he called “biased and partisan news coverage.”
The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS” to the extent allowed by law. The order could be challenged in court.
The White House said in a Friday statement that both organizations had received “tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.'”
“Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” the executive order reads. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
Trump and his loyalists, including Elon Musk, have long complained that NPR and PBS are biased and promote left-wing causes, an allegation staunchly denied by executives at both organizations. Last month, Trump called for their defunding on Truth Social, calling them “RADICAL LEFT ‘MONSTERS’ THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!”
To date, NPR and PBS receive roughly half a billion dollars each in public money and earn money from sponsorship. NPR says less than 1% of its funding comes from public sources.
However, Trump said in the order that the CPB failed to follow the principles of fairness and impartiality that underpin its public role.
“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,” he said.
The White House statement also provided a long list of what it said were “trash that passes for ‘news'” at PBS and NPR.
These alleged infringements included reporting on transgender issues and NPR’s apology for characterizing people as “illegal” (The Associated Press’s style guide also prohibits this).
Paula Kerger, CEO and president of PBS, said Friday: “The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years. We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans.”
Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, issued a defiant Friday statement and stressed that the White House did not control the organization.
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government,” she said.
Harrison said that when Congress created the CPB, it forbade any government agency or official from directing, supervising, or controlling it.
Katherine Maher, NPR President and CEO, also issued a Friday statement regarding the executive order.
“We will vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public. We will challenge this Executive Order using all means available,” Maher said, adding that “this is not about balancing the federal budget.”
“The appropriation for public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget. 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,” she said.
The CEO also noted that NPR programming is also essential “to the economic viability of its 246 Member organizations, generating on average 50% of all public radio listening, despite only accounting for roughly 25% of station programming.”
Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, said in a Friday statement that her organization was “deeply concerned” by the executive order and said it would limit local stations’ ability to serve their communities.
“This order defies the will of the American people and would devastate the public safety, educational and local service missions of public media — services that the American public values, trusts and relies on every day,” she said.
Riley added that more than 160 local TV stations across the country, particularly those in rural areas, offer a “lifeline in hundreds of communities where there is no other source of local media.”
In a statement last month, in response to a draft memo to Congress outlining the funding cut, an NPR spokesperson said: “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.”
Kerger said last month that an order to defund the organization would “disrupt the essential service PBS and local member stations provide to the American people.”
“There’s nothing more American than PBS, and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress,” she added.
Three members of the CPB board were removed from their posts via email earlier this week, leaving two remaining. The three who were removed filed a lawsuit, but their attorneys could not articulate in court any immediate irreparable harm facing CPB or the individuals.
Because of that, the judge only ordered the Trump administration to provide 48 hours’ notice before replacing board members with acting or interim members. Board members must be selected by the president and confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
The Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report Wednesday that Trump’s executive orders in his first 100 days in office had created a “chilling effect and have the potential to curtail media freedoms,” including by restricting access to the regular pool of reporters who follow the president and reopening FCC investigations into networks, including NBC News.
Former NPR editor Uri Berliner resigned last year and wrote an essay for a right-leaning publication criticizing the network’s liberal position and lack of political diversity. However, he stressed he didn’t support defunding NPR.
The Trump administration has repeatedly blocked reporters from covering news at the Oval Office and ousted journalists from their working spaces at the Pentagon, in a string of actions critics called an attack on independent news organizations’ efforts to report on his administration.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated when Uri Berliner resigned from NPR. Berliner resigned in April 2024.
