At the beginning of the month, President Trump signed an executive order to defund National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which receive $535 million in federal funding annually.
The order states that “neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens” and directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to cancel current funding “to the maximum extent allowed by the law.” It also prevents CPB from funding NPR and PBS in the future.
NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher noted in a statement that “the appropriation for public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget.”
CPB is a private nonprofit corporation, not a federal executive agency. It was established by Congress via the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to act as the mechanism through which federal funds are distributed to public broadcasting services around the country.
The Trump administration is already engaged in several legal conflicts over its proposed budget cuts, personnel reductions and funding freezes to federal agencies, but the President’s authority to drastically reorganize the federal government without Congressional approval is murky at best. His power to do so to private organizations like CPB is even less clear.
The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 restricts presidents from withholding congressionally approved funds without Congress’s approval. While Congressional leaders haven’t received any requests from the administration, both NPR and PBS have stated that they plan to challenge the order. CPB is already suing President Trump for attempting to fire three of its five board members.
CPB is unique in that it is funded by Congress every two years in order to prevent it from becoming politicized. While the Trump administration has already signed an executive order concerning the $535 million for PBS and NPR, they’re expected to attempt to rescind $1.1 billion that has already been appropriated to CPB through September 2027.
Because of the way CPB is funded, public broadcasting services may not immediately be affected by the order, but there are concerns about how it will impact communities in both the short and long term.
Cuts to federal funding will harm locally-owned stations first, as more than 70% of CPB’s budget benefits them directly. This could especially harm people in rural and Tribal areas, where local news stations are often the only reliable source of information.
There are also public safety concerns, as the national emergency alert system is partially dependent upon both local stations and public broadcasting infrastructure maintained by CPB grants.
CPB approved $9.65 million last month to upgrade broadcasting infrastructure and emergency alert systems in rural and Tribal areas. Over $500,000 was awarded to KSUT Tribal Radio in Ignacio, Colorado.
The cuts are also threatening children’s educational programs, like Sesame Street and other hallmarks of PBS KIDS content, which are already facing funding difficulties. Last week, the Department of Education cancelled a $23 million grant called Ready To Learn that supported several children’s shows.
Extensive research has demonstrated that Sesame Street and other programs like it are uniquely suited to help children develop and learn. Their accessibility has filled learning gaps for children without access to preschool programs, improving their literacy and math skills.
This is crucial in the U.S., where only about 40% of 4-year-olds are enrolled in state-funded preschool programs, many of which are low-quality. With Head Start and other child care programs being targeted by the Trump administration, the role of shows like Sesame Street may be even more important.
The National Bureau of Economic Research concluded in 2015 that Sesame Street is “the largest and least-costly [early childhood] intervention that’s ever been implemented” in the U.S., and that it had the biggest impact on disadvantaged children.
As the debate over the role of public media and the influence that the executive branch has over it continues, the fate of hundreds of federally dependent programs remains uncertain.
