Trump administration officials want legislators to rescind $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides some support for public media.
The White House is planning to ask Congress to claw back more than $1 billion slated for public broadcasting in the United States, according to two people briefed on the plan, a move that could ultimately eliminate almost all federal support for NPR and PBS.
The plan is to request that Congress rescind $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer-backed company that funds public media organizations across the United States, one of the people said. If Congress agrees, that will amount to about two years of the organization’s funding, nearly all of which goes to public broadcasters including NPR, PBS and their local member stations. The Trump administration isn’t planning to ask Congress to claw back about $100 million allocated for emergency communications.
Government money accounts for a small part of the budgets at NPR and PBS, which also generate revenue through sponsorships and donations. Most of the government funding goes to local stations, which rely on it to finance their newsrooms and pay for programming.
The proposal would be part of a broader rescission package, a formal request to Congress to rescind previously approved funds, that would also eliminate billions allocated to foreign aid, the two people said. The process is established under law, which gives the House and Senate 45 days to vote to approve the request after it is submitted. The White House plans to submit this rescission request in the coming weeks, the people said. If Congress does not approve the rescission request, the money must be spent as originally intended.
The Trump administration’s proposal to defund public broadcasting comes amid sustained pressure on NPR and PBS from Republicans in Congress, who have intensified long-running attacks on the broadcasters. The chief executives of both organizations testified before Congress last month in a fiery hearing that played out along mostly partisan lines: Republicans assailed the executives for what they saw as liberal bias, and Democrats argued that the proceeding was a waste of time.
The ask would also be the latest move by the Trump administration to exert pressure on media organizations. The administration is waging a legal battle with The Associated Press over its decision to exclude the wire service from the presidential press pool, breaking decades of precedent. Mr. Trump is also personally suing CBS News and The Des Moines Register, and the Federal Communications Commission has launched investigations into Comcast, PBS and NPR.