President Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to eliminate federal funding for the nation’s two largest public broadcasters—National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
This move follows a series of long-standing criticisms from the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers, who have accused the broadcasters of partisan bias.
According to the order, the CPB’s board is instructed to end direct funding to NPR and PBS “to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.” Additionally, the CPB must take steps to “minimize or eliminate” indirect funding to the two media organizations.
The order also empowers Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to launch an investigation into NPR and PBS for possible employment discrimination. Furthermore, it mandates that all other federal agencies identify and terminate any direct or indirect funding to the broadcasters, where legally permitted.
This directive intensifies the administration’s ongoing confrontation with public media. It comes just days after the CPB filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration in response to the abrupt dismissal of three board members via email. The affected members—Laura G. Ross, Thomas E. Rothman, and Diane Kaplan—were appointed by President Joe Biden in 2022. Ross had originally been appointed by Trump in 2018 before her reappointment by Biden.
Each year, the CPB distributes approximately $535 million in federal funds to public radio and television stations across the country. This funding supports not only PBS and NPR affiliates but also smaller, independent public media outlets.
The White House has indicated that it will soon urge Congress to rescind funds already appropriated to the CPB for the next two fiscal years.
Congress originally established the CPB in 1967 as a private, nonprofit corporation to ensure editorial independence. The law explicitly prohibits government control over public broadcasting, stating that no federal entity may exercise “any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting.”
