@pbsnews: President Donald Trump issued an executive order late Thursday night that instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to halt all direct federal funding to the nation’s two major public broadcasting networks – the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR). The move will directly affect the roughly 1,500 public media stations nationwide, as well as national programs like the PBS News Hour. Trump also directed CPB – a congressionally chartered, private, nonprofit corporation which provides more than $500 million to local PBS and NPR stations every year – to eliminate indirect government sources of financing for the networks. Patricia Harrison, the president of CPB, said in a statement that the corporation is “not a federal executive agency subject to the president’s authority. Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.” CPB filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration earlier this week after the White House fired three of the corporation’s board members. The executive order is also expected to be challenged in court. PBS CEO Paula Kerger called Trump’s executive order “blatantly unlawful,” while NPR CEO Katherine Maher said her organization “will vigorously defend our right to provide essential news, information and life-saving services to the American public. We will challenge this executive order using all means available.” The order came on the heels of reports the White House planned to engage Congress in an effort to rescind already distributed funds from the public media networks. It’s unclear at this time if the rescission plan will move forward following Trump’s executive order. Both NPR and PBS are engaged in campaigns to encourage their supporters to lobby Congress to protect federal funding. The Trump administration argues that taxpayers should not be supporting media that he argues carries a liberal bias. The president has referred to the news media as “the enemy of the people,” filed lawsuits against CBS News and ABC News, and pushed The Associated Press out of the press pool whose job is to cover his administration. Visit pbs.org/newshour for more coverage

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Friday 02 May 2025 23:14:35 GMT