Trump’s attack on PBS and NPR is an attack on Americans and Freedom of the Press

Trump’s attack on PBS and NPR is an attack on Americans and Freedom of the Press

By Lynda Carson - April 16, 2025

Oakland, CA - Since the convicted felon Donald J. Trump has been elected back into office he has crashed the stock market, threatened to cut federal funds too sanctuary cities, he has attacked universities across the nation and cut their funding, ignored the rulings and orders of judges, has attacked the Department of Education, funding for museums and libraries, and is attacking the funding for PBS, NPR, and public media. If the genocidal maniac Adolf Hitler and his minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels were still around, they would probably be proud of Trump.

According to the Project 2025 website, in an attack on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) https://cpb.org/ , it states, “Stripping public funding would, of course, mean that NPR, PBS, Pacifica Radio, and the other leftist broadcasters would be shorn of the presumption that they act in the public interest and receive the privileges that often accompany so acting.”

That's right! The notorious convicted felon President Donald J. Trump is attacking the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) by wanting to cut funding to the organization, and claw back $9.3 billion dollars from PBS, NPR, and the State Department.

Click below for more…

https://news.google.com/search?q=funding%20cuts%2C%20PBS&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

Or, PBS funding attack links…

https://news.google.com/search?q=PBS%20funding%20attack&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB):

CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation https://cpb.org/aboutcpb authorized by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.

CPB is the steward of the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting and the largest single source of funding for public radio, television, and related online and mobile services.
CPB’s mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial, high-quality content and telecommunications services. It does so by distributing more than 70% of its funding to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations.

For fiscal year 2025 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadcasting , its appropriation was US$535 million, including $10 million in interest earned. The distribution of these funds was as follows:

• $267.83M for direct grants to local public television stations;

• $96.78M for television programming grants;

• $83.33M for direct grants to local public radio stations;

• $28.63M for the Radio National Program Production and Acquisition

• $9.58M for the Radio Program Fund

• $32.10M for system support

• $26.75M for administration

Reportedly, "However, the US spends considerably less on public media than its peer nations. A 2021 study from the University of Pennsylvania found that Germany spends $142.42 a person on its public media, Norway spends $110.73, the UK $81.30, and Spain $58.25, while the US spends just $3.16."

Just try to imagine a world without KPFA Radio / Pacific Radio https://kpfa.org/ , KQED Television, NPR Radio, or All Things Considered on NPR https://www.npr.org/ , the concert music of Austin City Limits on Saturday nights on PBS https://www.pbs.org/ , or the educational reporting documentaries of Frontline, news reports on the PBS News Hour, Washington Week, the BBC News, political coverage of elections, the fabulous historical documentaries of Ken Burns and other great documentaries, Finding Your Roots with Louis Gates Jr., Antiques Roadshow, children programs including Sesame Street, concerts on PBS, Ask This Old House, nature documentaries, and many other great programs including the Eyes On The Prize series.

Recently, during its struggle to remain on the air broadcasting, KPFA Radio celebrated their 76 year anniversary https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/04/12/18864941.php , and more about KPFA may be found here, https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/05/28/18866693.php?show_comments=1 .

Additionally, KALX college radio in Berkeley https://kalx.berkeley.edu/ , a local public radio station that interviewed me a while back https://kalx.berkeley.edu/lynda-carson-interview/ , may also be getting grants from the CPB to help keep them broadcasting with radio programs that I enjoy https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U7vuJ02ljyb0kIj9KH2rtWj9tzTMfJxv/view at times.

Indeed, it would be a very insane bleak world to live in without the fabulous broadcasts of KPFA, NPR and PBS, in a greedy world of corporate news media, extremist right-wing fascist Fox News channels, and its right-wing propaganda of lies, deceit, fake news, and fascist Trump agenda against DEI programs, the LGBTQ plus community, immigrants, and the so-called woke beliefs held by and supported by half the country all across the nation.

The way things are heading in this country, the right-wing MAGA fascists will not be happy until they plant a flag up everyone ass, and force everyone to carry a bible with them where ever they go, just like MAO did in China, when everyone was forced to carry the so-called Little Red Book https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quotations_from_Chairman_Mao_Tse-tung years ago.

Reportedly in todays PBS News Hour https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyO_e83fJvU , A Look at the trump administration’s efforts to slash public media funding, may be found in here https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/a-look-at-the-trump-administrations-efforts-to-slash-public-media-funding …

That’s right, according to the PBS News Hour this evening, the headlines are screaming:

Trump administration plans to ask Congress to defund PBS, NPR
Politics Apr 16, 2025 5:12 PM EDT

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-administration-plans-to-ask-congress-to-defund-pbs-npr

According to the PBS News Hour this evening, “President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to ask Congress to rescind $1.1 billion, or about two years of funding, from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which helps support PBS and NPR.
“Taxpayer funding of NPR’s and PBS’s biased content is a waste,” the White House said in a statement Monday.

Office of Management and Budget director Russell Vought confirmed Tuesday that the administration will try to revoke the CPB’s congressionally approved funding, which partially funds member stations of the nation’s two largest public broadcasters.

In an interview on Fox Business Tuesday, Vought accused NPR and PBS of reporting “leftist news for decades and cultural indoctrination for the last four or five years.” POLITICO and The New York Post first reported the administration’s intention to rescind the money.

CPB funding makes up about 13 percent of local public media stations’ revenue, according to its financial disclosures. But the money is disproportionately distributed, and provides for a higher percentage of station budgets in smaller markets compared to larger markets. CPB also says that for every dollar of federal funding, stations raise $7 from donors, including “state and local governments, universities, businesses, foundations and individual viewers and listeners, underscoring their value to the communities they serve.”

PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in a statement that the loss of funding “would devastate PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities, particularly smaller and rural stations who rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets.”

The plan to request a rescission comes weeks after Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher testified before the House Oversight subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.

The cuts are part of a larger expected rescission request totaling around $9 billion that also targets USAID and State Department programs. Because the Trump administration will attempt to claw back money that has already been appropriated, the administration must follow formal impoundment procedures, which include sending a memo to Congress. The legislative branch then has 45 days to decide whether to approve, reject or ignore the request. The money will be rescinded only if a majority of both the House and Senate approve the ask; if not, the administration must allocate the funding.

WETA, one of the public TV stations serving northern Virginia and the Washington metro area, receives support from CPB. WETA produces the PBS News Hour and Washington Week with The Atlantic, among other national and local programming.

The White House is expected to send its request to Congress on April 28.

According to NPR today, they also report, NPR CEO Katherine Maher addresses future of federal funding for public media https://www.npr.org/2025/04/16/nx-s1-5366040/npr-federal-funding-katherine-maher .

Petition: Tell Congress: Save Public Broadcasting, click below…

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/tell-congress-save-public

Local public media respond to White House Attacks on PBS, NPR, see link below…

https://community.triblive.com/news/3774623

SZA show support for Sesame Street amid attacks on PBS funding, click on link below…

https://www.blackenterprise.com/sza-sesame-street-pbs-trump/

In a press release from Free Press, Trump's Plan to Defund Public Broadcasting To Face Opposition from Americans Who Overwhelmingly Support NPR and PBS
Click bellow…

https://www.freepress.net/news/trumps-plan-defund-public-broadcasting-face-opposition-americans-who-overwhelmingly-support

In another report, The defenders of Public Media vow to fight the convicted felon President Trump to save PBS and NPR. See story below…

Defenders of Public Media Vow Fight Against Trump Assault on 'Cherished' NPR and PBS

"NPR and PBS aren't perfect. But they, and more importantly the hundreds of public stations across the country, are vital to a healthy democracy," wrote on journalist.


ELOISE GOLDSMITH
Apr 15, 2025

A leader of the advocacy group Free Press Action Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of Free Press, on Monday denounced a plan by the Trump administration to reportedly ask Congress to take back more than $1 billion in already approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the congressionally funded and created company that supports public media in the United States.

The request to yank CPB funding, which would impact the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), National Public Radio (NPR), and their local member stations across the country, will be part of a broader package to rescind already approved funds and is also expected to impact funding for the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the U.S. Institute of Peace, according to Politico, which cited an anonymous White House official.

Congress had already approved $535 million in federal spending for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. If Congress agrees to the White House's request, the decrease in funding will tally about two years worth of CPB funding, nearly all of which goes to public broadcasters such as NPR and PBS, according to The New York Times.

The Trump administration plans to submit a rescission request in the coming weeks, according to the Times, which anonymously quoted two people briefed on the plan. According to Politico, to approve the request, the ask would need to clear the House and the Senate, which are both Republican-controlled, by only a simple majority vote.

Free Press Action co-CEO Jessica J. González, reacted to the news in a statement Monday: "The Trump White House may not like public media—and that's no surprise given the president's frequent attacks on any journalism that holds his administration and its cabal of billionaires accountable. But Trump's views are out of step with those of the majority of Americans, who overwhelmingly support federal funding for public media."

According to a Pew Research Center survey from March, Americans are more likely to support rather than oppose continued federal funding for NPR and PBS. Twenty-four percent of U.S. adults say Congress should remove government funding from NPR and PBS, 43% say NPR and PBS should continue receiving federal funding, and 33% say they are unsure.

"President Trump and his loyalists want to take another cherished public service away from the American people," González said. "We will ensure that members of Congress will hear a similar outcry in the coming days and weeks, and encourage people to, in-person, tell their elected representatives and senators to support public broadcasting as they return home to face constituents over spring recess."

According to the Times, PBS gets about 15% of its budget from federal funding. NPR has said only 1% of its funding comes from federal sources, but its individual member stations would be more heavily impacted by a reduction in CPB funding.

PBS and NPR have been in the Trump administration's crosshairs for months. In late January, the Republican Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr launched an investigation into NPR and PBS. In March, leaders from NPR and PBS were summoned to testify before the U.S. House Oversight Committee's Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee. Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who chairs that subcommittee, concluded the hearing by saying that Republicans on the committee will call for the "complete and total defund and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting."

On Monday, the Trump White House published an article arguing that taxpayers have been subsidizing NPR and PBS even though the they have been spreading "radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'" The release included examples of the alleged propaganda.

Former "Here and Now" co-host Jeremy Hobson reacted with dismay on Monday to the news that Trump wants to yank funding for the CPB.

"As someone who has worked in public broadcasting since I was a kid, and has always tried to be factual and fair, this makes me sad. NPR and PBS aren't perfect. But they, and more importantly the hundreds of public stations across the country, are vital to a healthy democracy," he wrote on X.

Convicted Felon Trump’s Attack On Public Media:

The Trump Administration’s Attack On Public Media, and Freedom of the Press:

The Trump administration and his fascist supporters hate PBS and NPR according to Neo-Nazi, right-wing fascist propaganda posted with the the White House.


Project 2025s Attack On The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB):

Mandate for Leadership:

The Conservative Promise CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING

Mike Gonzalez

https://static.project2025.org/2025_MandateForLeadership_CHAPTER-08.pdf

For those of you wanting to save the the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), PBS, NPR, the Pacifica Radio network with KPFA, or KALX Radio, and college radio stations all across the nation, be sure to contact your representatives to tell them Hands Off!, public media!

Lynda Carson may be reached at Newzland2 [at] gmail.com

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