Trump orders end to federal funding for and PBS

The executive order, like many that have been signed by the president, could be challenged in court.

“The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding,” the order says.

“I think that it’s important for public media to be able to continue to be relevant in a time where there is a lot of coverage of different issues and areas of interest,” she said.

Maher was assailed for her past political postings on social media and the network’s news judgment almost entirely based on tweets and stories that preceded her March 2024 arrival at the network by years.

PBS’s Paula Kerger found herself queried about a video involving a performer in drag singing a variation on a children’s song for a young audience. (Kerger testified that the video was posted on the website of PBS’s New York City member station and never aired on television.)

Federal funding for public media flows through the congressionally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Congress allocated $535 million for the CPB for the current fiscal year – an amount affirmed in a recent stop-gap bill passed by the Republican-controlled U.S. House and Senate.

The CPB’s budget is approved by Congress on a two-year cycle in large part to insulate it from political pressures; according to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Congress has fully funded it through Sept 30, 2027.

At the hearing in late March, heads of both networks spoke of the mission to provide nonpartisan news and programming to the American public, without charge.

By contrast, PBS and its stations receive about 15% of their revenues from CPB’s federal funds.

Most of the funds for public media go to local stations; and most to subsidize television, which is more expensive than radio.

The networks say they have been encouraged repeatedly by the agency and Congress to develop private financial support and have worked assiduously for years with the FCC to ensure that its content falls within FCC guidelines.

President Trump opened up a new front in his assault on public media on Monday, asserting that he was removing three of the five board members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The corporation sued Trump on Tuesday morning in response, pointing to federal law and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to contend that he does not have the power to take these actions.