In executive order, Trump demands CPB stop funding PBS, NPR
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President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday night that instructs CPB to cease all federal funding to PBS and NPR.
The order states that continued federal support for public media through CPB “is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.” It orders CPB to bar stations that receive Community Service Grants from spending federal funds “for NPR and PBS.”
“At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage,” the order says. “No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize.”
The order points to principles of impartiality in the Public Broadcasting Act and asserts that CPB fails to meet that standard through its funding of NPR and PBS. “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter,” the order says. “What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
Federal appropriations to CPB are approved by Congress two years in advance to guard against political interference. Trump’s order directs CPB’s board to cancel “existing direct funding” for NPR and PBS “to the maximum extent allowed by law” and to decline all future funding.
Appropriations for CPB have already been signed into law through fiscal year 2027 through a spending bill approved by Congress in March. Even so, the order requires CPB to amend its 2025 CSG criteria to prohibit direct or indirect federal funding for NPR and PBS. It also orders CPB to apply the order to 2024 CSG criteria “to the extent permitted” and effective as of the order. The heads of other federal agencies are also instructed to terminate direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS “to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.”
In a statement Friday, CPB President Pat Harrison said that “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.”
Harrison added that when Congress created CPB, 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.”
In a statement, PBS President Paula Kerger said, “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.”
In a statement, NPR said that Trump’s order “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,” NPR said. “It is also an affront to the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information.”
Kate Riley, CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, said in a statement that Trump’s 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.”
“These restrictions would be particularly damaging to local stations serving smaller, more rural communities that rely on federal funding for a higher percentage of their budget,” Riley said. “This order would make it impossible for many stations to secure programming and services needed by their communities and would destroy the local-national, public-private partnership that enables stations’ ability to raise the additional funding needed to support local programming and services that are not available from any other source.”
During his first term in the White House, President Trump sought to zero out CPB’s appropriation in his budget proposals. Congress restored the funding through its appropriations process.
Reports of a White House proposal to rescind more than $1 billion in CPB’s advance appropriations emerged last month. The Washington Post reported Friday that Republican lawmakers have informed the White House that Congress is unlikely to approve the rescission.
CPB also sued Trump Tuesday over an attempt to fire CPB board members.
This story has been updated with statements from NPR, APTS CEO Kate Riley and PBS President Paula Kerger, as well as additional reporting about the rescission proposal.
The “executive order” is meaningless on its face. That is, unless you want to attribute political “meaning” to it. In my opinion nothing should change at CPB, NPR or the stations. Only congress can act on CPB funding, and even then, it’s questionable as to whether it could claw-back the forward funded amount.
Stations can fundraise on this news, but I hope no action is taken that is requested by the executive order. My opinion, of course.
Tim Roesler
Roesler Management Partners
If I may, Julian, this story begs for more of an explanation of what an “executive order” really means. Most Presidents, not just Trump, have a vested interest in making the public think an EO has the force of law behind it. They don’t. At all. They are literally nothing more than a President writing down “this is how I choose to interpret the law in this situation.” It’s a statement of belief, that’s all.
This is not unlike the difference between laws and regulations. Laws, by their very nature, have to be fairly broad documents. You cannot make a law so specific that it tells you exactly what must be done in a given situation without, by definition, making the law so specific that it can no longer be applicable to other, similar, situations. Hence, you have regulations; the executive branch interpreting the law as needed for various, specific, situations, using the law as their guide for the intent. An Executive Order is even weaker than a regulation; regulations have to go through some manner of drafting and review, at least. EO’s are just whatever the President wants to say.
Trump, of course, has no such interest in following laws nor precedent and just vomits out EO’s to try and convince people that he can rule by fiat. He can’t, but he’s trying anyways.
There is, strictly speaking, no controversy here whatsoever. The law is quite clear that Trump has zero authority in this arena. He can issue EO’s all day if he likes, but he does not have the legal authority to do what he’s demanding in those EO’s. He just doesn’t. Full stop. End of debate.
The problem is more existential: what are laws but the collection agreement of society to behave a certain way? If Trump can convince enough people that EO’s *do* have the force of law and therefore he is allowed to do what he wants…even if it’s “against the law”…well then what we’ve got is technically the textbook definition of “anarchy” but if sufficient people decide to allow it then it is what it is. That’s a more metaphysical question, of course.
But within the framework of our existing legal system? Trump’s EO’s are utterly meaningless, and should be reported as such. This isn’t a he said/she said situation, and any interview with a competent legal scholar would say as much.
I just learned about trumps action regarding the Smithsonian on the PBS website today. I wouldn’t have known otherwise. PBS has always been objective rather than “left wing” as our president fears. I’m a little more alarmed when I just don’t know what is happening from other sources. I need this media to learn about the world.