Trump’s Budget Push Targets “Politically Biased” Public Broadcasting
Former President Donald Trump is once again going after institutions he’s long criticized for “liberal bias.” This time, the move comes in the form of a new $9.3 billion rescission package submitted by the White House to Congress. Among its most controversial proposals? Completely stripping federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which helps fund both NPR and PBS — two outlets that have become frequent targets of conservative ire.
As first reported by the New York Post, the rescission packet outlines plans to claw back $8.3 billion from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1.1 billion from the CPB. These cuts come as part of a broader effort, spearheaded by White House budget director Russ Vought, to eliminate what the administration describes as “waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Vought, in a memo obtained by the Post, argued that CPB has a “long history of anti-conservative bias,” and pointed to foreign aid spending that allegedly does not serve American interests. “Since day one, the Trump Administration has targeted waste, fraud, and abuse in Federal spending,” Vought wrote, adding that Congress had encouraged the White House to propose such rescissions “for swift approval.”
Under the rules of the Impoundment Control Act, lawmakers now have 45 days to approve or reject the rescission plan. With Republicans holding the majority in both the House and Senate, the administration is optimistic that this time the proposal could succeed — unlike Trump’s previous 2018 attempt, which narrowly failed in the Senate.
The memo lays out two key initiatives: the first is the rollback of non-expiring foreign aid funding; the second is a total rescission of all federal money directed to CPB. The memo brands NPR and PBS as “politically biased public radio and public television,” asserting that their content has moved further into partisan territory.
Critics on the right have recently doubled down on accusations that NPR and PBS are no longer neutral arbiters of news, especially after Katherine Maher, the newly appointed NPR CEO, was found to have previously referred to Trump as a “fascist” and “deranged racist” in past social media posts. Maher later expressed regret for her comments during a congressional hearing last month.
The rescission packet also highlights PBS programming featuring transgender characters as further evidence of what it calls “politically biased content.” Conservatives argue that such programming reflects broader cultural shifts that public broadcasting should avoid taking sides on.
In a fiery March post on X (formerly Twitter), Trump called for Congress to “DEFUND” both NPR and PBS, labeling them “horrible and completely biased platforms.”
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr has also gotten involved. In January, Carr initiated an inquiry into whether NPR and PBS may have violated federal rules by airing what he called “illegal commercials.”
If approved, this would represent one of the most sweeping GOP-led efforts in recent memory to strip public funding from media outlets that have historically enjoyed bipartisan support but are now central to ongoing culture war debates.