President Trump's executive order to defund NPR and PBS has provoked strong opposition from both organizations, with heavy legal pushback asserting it threatens public access to information. The directive instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to eliminate substantial federal funding, marking a significant escalation in Republican efforts to challenge public media. Executives from both NPR and PBS criticized the order as illegal and an infringement on free speech. This action follows multiple attempts within months to undermine public media funding, reflecting ongoing partisan debates over perceived biases in media.
The order issued late Thursday instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which receives and distributes over $500 million in taxpayer money to public TV and radio stations annually, to eliminate millions of dollars in federal funding to the two public media organizations.
Patricia Harrison, the chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private company, said in a statement that the White House had no legal authority over the company.
Ms. 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.'
Mr. Trump's executive order was the fourth effort by Republicans to weaken public media in as many months: A bill is working its way through Congress to defund NPR and PBS.
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