After nearly 60 years, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will lose its federal funding in October 2025.
Congress held the power to save the CPB’s $1.07 billion of already appropriated funding, and chose not to early Friday morning when the U.S. House joined the U.S. Senate in approving President Donald Trump’s rescissions bill. The House vote, as reported by Poynter, was 216 to 213.
CPB distributes funding to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which will lose funding for the next two years.
Congress has not passed a presidential rescissions bill since President Bill Clinton’s in 1999.
“We’re lawmakers. We should be legislating,” Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska said Tuesday during Senate debates. “What we’re getting now is a direction from the White House and being told: ‘This is the priority, we want you to execute on it, we’ll be back with you with another round.’ I don’t accept that.”
A Trump rescissions bill during his first term as president in 2018 totaled $15.3 billion, passed the House and failed in the Senate.
The only Republicans Friday morning to join Democrats in opposition to the bill were Murkowski, who told reporters she thought her colleagues were voting to secure Trump’s support, and Maine Sen. Susan Collins. Last week, Trump threatened Republicans who opposed the bill in a social media post.
“I think that that (post) influenced my colleagues, and I think that that’s unfortunate,” Murkowski said.
Cutting funding for public broadcasting is in a long list of federal funding cuts by the Trump Administration, as well as federal employee layoffs. As a result, Trump faces multiple lawsuits in court.
More than 70 percent of CPB’s funding would have gone to local television and radio stations in the form of grant funding, especially in rural areas of the United States. Without public broadcasting, many rural areas will also lose vital communications needed to deliver information during emergencies.
According to Poynter, Democratic Rep. Alma Adams of North Carolina said that when Hurricane Helene hit Western North Carolina in 2024, public broadcasters continued to transmit information when other forms of communication failed.
“Make no mistake, without public broadcasting, we would have seen more lives lost in Helene and, as we enter another hurricane season, I worry how these cuts will harm our ability to keep people safe,” Adams told Poynter.
CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement that revocation of funding will have “profound, lasting, negative consequences for every American.”
“Without federal funding, many local public radio and television stations will be forced to shut down. Parents will have fewer high quality learning resources available for their children. Millions of Americans will have less trustworthy information about their communities, states, country, and world with which to make decisions about the quality of their lives,” Harrison said.
Since the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, Congress has protected CPB from political influence as a private nonprofit. A 1975 law by Congress began to require funding approval two years in advance for CPB to further prevent interference.
“It will be free, and it will be independent — and it will belong to all of our people,” President Lyndon B. Johnson said when he signed the legislation into law.
Previous attempts by Republicans to end federal support for public broadcasting have failed, including an attempt in 1969 which let to TV host Fred Rogers giving famous congressional testimony in support of public broadcasting.
Trump has also attempted to fire three members of CPB’s board, signed an executive order for CPB’s board to no longer fund NPR and PBS and on Tuesday, he filed suit against the board members who have not vacated their positions.
A petition on change.org to save funding for CPB which “plays a vital role in American society” has received more than 87,000 signatures.
Related stories:
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Corporation for Public Broadcasting: Feds have no control of NPR, PBS
NPR sues Trump administration with claim of ‘free speech’ violation
Trump’s rescission bill would remove $1.1B from PBS, NPR funding
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Rebecca Barnabi
