President Trump on Tuesday formally called on Congress to cancel $1.1 billion in funding over the next two years that has been budgeted for public broadcasters like PBS and NPR.
The president’s rescission request — which asks Congress to cut funding it had already approved for public broadcasters — will need a majority of lawmakers in the House and the Senate in favor to become law.
Tuesday’s request is the latest step in President Trump’s push to defund public broadcasters. Last month, President Trump signed an executive order calling for the end of taxpayer subsidization of PBS and NPR, via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse and innovative news options,” the order said. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
The president has also called NPR and PBS “radical left monsters” that Republicans must defund in recent social media posts.
Congress has already allocated $535 million for public broadcasters this fiscal year; PBS last week said it is it receiving $325 million this year from the CPB, which accounts for 22% of its funding.
PBS and NPR have both recently sued the Trump Administration in an attempt to thwart his plan to defund public broadcasters.
The lawsuit filed by PBS last week said the president’s executive order violates its First Amendment rights and also claimed President Trump does not have the authority to make decisions over funding for public broadcasters.
President Trump, the lawsuit added, was engaging in “viewpoint discrimination” because he has claimed PBS is biased against him and other Republicans.
PBS chief Paula Kerger recently said the president’s executive order would spell the end for a number of local news stations.
Kerger, in an interview with Katie Couric, lamented that “there are stations that will go off the air” in rural areas if the president is successful, without projecting a specific number of PBS member stations that would cease to operate.
“I think we’ll figure out a way, through digital, to make sure there is some PBS content,” Kerger said. “But there won’t be anyone in the community creating local content. There won’t be a place for people to come together.”
