A sign for the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS,  is seen on its building headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

This report has been updated.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration sent its first spending cuts request to Congress on Tuesday, asking lawmakers to swiftly eliminate $9.4 billion in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and various foreign aid programs.

The request for what are called rescissions allows the White House budget office to legally freeze spending on those accounts for 45 days while the Republican-controlled Congress debates whether to approve the recommendation in full or in part, or to ignore it.

The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. That means NPR and PBS would lose their already approved federal allocations, if the request is approved by Congress.

President Donald Trump issued an executive order in May seeking to block the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from providing funding for NPR and PBS, leading to two separate lawsuits citing First Amendment concerns.

In the rescissions request, Trump wants to cut $8.3 billion from foreign aid programs, including the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, a global initiative to combat HIV/AIDS, and the African Development Foundation.

The proposal is the first of several that will seek to codify efforts undertaken by U.S. DOGE Service and billionaire Elon Musk before he left his official role as a special government employee.

White House budget director Russ Vought wrote in a letter accompanying the request that it “emphasizes the need to cut wasteful foreign assistance spending at the Department of State and USAID and through other international assistance programs.”

“These rescissions would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests, such as funding the World Health Organization, LGBTQI+ activities, ‘equity’ programs, radical Green New Deal-type policies, and color revolutions in hostile places around the world,” Vought wrote. “In addition, Federal spending on CPB subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”

GOP leaders in Congress appear likely to hold floor votes on the request, which only needs a simple majority to pass the Senate, avoiding the need for Democratic support to get past the 60-vote legislative filibuster.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., wrote in a statement the House “will act quickly on this request.”

“This rescissions package reflects many of DOGE’s findings and is one of the many legislative tools Republicans are using to restore fiscal sanity,” Johnson wrote. “Congress will continue working closely with the White House to codify these recommendations, and the House will bring the package to the floor as quickly as possible.”

But Republican leaders could run into problems with centrist Republicans in each chamber, especially those on the Appropriations committees, which approved the funding in the first place.

The GOP holds especially narrow majorities in Congress, requiring the support of nearly every one of the 220 Republicans in the House and the party’s 53 senators.

Republican leaders may need to negotiate what exactly gets written into the rescissions bill if too many moderate Republicans raise objections to cutting off the funding.

Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine, wrote in a statement the committee “will carefully review the rescissions package and examine the potential consequences of these rescissions on global health, national security, emergency communications in rural communities, and public radio and television stations.”

Foreign aid, public media take hits

The request calls for lawmakers to make cuts to dozens of foreign aid programs, including $500 million out of $4 billion for certain global health programs at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

“This proposal would not reduce treatment but would eliminate programs that are antithetical to American interests and worsen the lives of women and children, like ‘family planning’ and ‘reproductive health,’ LGBTQI+ activities, and ‘equity’ programs,” the request states. “This rescission proposal aligns with the Administration’s efforts to eliminate wasteful USAID foreign assistance programs.”

The rescissions request proposes Congress eliminate $400 million of the $6 billion for global health programs that seek to control HIV/AIDS, which OMB writes “would eliminate only those programs that neither provide life-saving treatment nor support American interests.”

The request asks lawmakers to eliminate $2.5 billion of the $3.9 billion they approved for development assistance, which “is intended to fund programs that work to end extreme poverty and promote resilient, democratic societies, but in practice, many of the DA programs conflict with American values, interfere with the sovereignty of other countries, and bankroll corrupt leaders’ evasion of their responsibilities to their citizens, all while providing no clear benefit to Americans.”

The proposal calls on lawmakers to eliminate more than $1 billion in funding across two fiscal years for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which the administration wrote “would be used to subsidize a public media system that is politically biased and an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”

President and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Patricia Harrison wrote in a statement the organization “is firmly committed to ensuring that funding for public media provides local communities with accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news and information, and we take seriously concerns about bias that have been raised.

“The path to better public media is achievable only if funding is maintained. Otherwise, a vital lifeline that operates reliable emergency communications, supports early learning, and keeps local communities connected and informed will be cut off with regrettable and lasting consequences.”

President and CEO of PBS Paula Kerger wrote in a separate statement that the “proposed rescissions would have a devastating impact on PBS member stations and the essential role they play in communities, particularly smaller and rural stations that rely on federal funding for a larger portion of their budgets.

“Without PBS member stations, Americans will lose unique local programming and emergency services in times of crisis.”  

Kerger wrote that PBS would seek to keep its funding by demonstrating “our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, in providing educational, enriching programs and critical services to all Americans every day for free.”

NPR CEO Katherine Maher wrote that Congress enacting the rescissions “would irreparably harm communities across America who count on public media for 24/7 news, music, cultural and educational programming, and emergency alerting services.”

“Public safety in every community across the nation could also be affected. NPR, as the entity chosen by public radio stations to operate the nationwide Public Radio Satellite System (PRSS), receives Presidential-level emergency alerts and distributes them across the country within minutes,” Maher wrote. “In the event of a national attack or emergency, communities no longer served by a station would not receive this lifesaving, early warning and civil defense alert.”

More details

A summary of the proposal shared with States Newsroom by the White House budget office ahead of its official release later in the day says the funding cuts would affect programs that sought to reduce xenophobia in Venezuela; support electoral reforms and voter education in Kenya; fund voter identification in Haiti; provide electric buses in Rwanda; broadcast the longtime PBS children’s show “Sesame Street” in Iraq; and strengthen the resilience of LGBTQ global movements.

The proposal would also cut off funding to Harvard University to conduct research models for peace and to New York University to analyze democracy field experiments in South Sudan, according to the OMB summary.

PEPFAR would no longer have funding for circumcision, vasectomies, and condoms in Zambia, or for services for “transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks” in Nepal, according to the OMB summary.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a vocal supporter of PEPFAR, said during a brief interview that he was told “that PEPFAR had some cuts, but that the basic core mission was continued.”

Cassidy — chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — said his staff was carefully reviewing the request and knows he cares “about this deeply.”

The rescissions request, which asks lawmakers to claw back already approved funding, is different from the president’s budget request, which proposes spending levels for thousands of federal programs for the upcoming fiscal year.

Both are merely proposals, since the Constitution grants Congress the power of the purse in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7.

Timing on Senate floor vote unclear

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said Monday that lawmakers in that chamber will begin reviewing the rescissions request this month, but didn’t detail exactly when he’d hold a floor vote. 

“Another item high on our list to begin work on in June is a rescissions package the White House intends to send Congress this week,” Thune said. “The administration has identified a number of wasteful uses of taxpayer dollars and we will be taking up this package and eliminating this waste. We’ll make that a priority.”

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray, D-Wash., wrote in a statement released Monday that “Trump is looking to go after PBS and NPR to settle political scores and muzzle the free press, while undermining foreign assistance programs that push back on China’s malign influence, save lives, and address other bipartisan priorities.”

“If Republicans choose to go along with this rescission package, they will follow Trump at their peril,” Schumer and Murray wrote. “The power of the purse is one of Congress’s most fundamental Constitutional responsibilities. Democrats will not allow Republicans to play games with the budget.”

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy said during a brief interview Tuesday that he plans to “carefully” evaluate the rescissions request.

West Virginia GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said Tuesday that she would go over the proposals once it officially arrives from the White House to determine whether she can support moving it across the floor.

“It could be a fight. It could not be a fight,” Capito said. “We just don’t know.”

The House Freedom Caucus, a group of far-right members led by Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, posted Monday its members hope the administration sends additional rescissions requests as quickly as possible.

“Passing this rescissions package will be an important demonstration of Congress’s willingness to deliver on DOGE and the Trump agenda,” the Freedom Caucus statement said. “While the Swamp will inevitably attempt to slow and kill these cuts, there is no excuse for a Republican House not to advance the first DOGE rescissions package the same week it is presented to Congress then quickly send it for passage in the Republican Senate so President Trump can sign it into law.”

A sign for the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS,  is seen on its building headquarters on Feb. 18, 2025 in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The Public Broadcasting Service and Lakeland PBS in Minnesota sued the Trump administration Friday, arguing an executive order seeking to cut off their federal funding violates the Constitution and would “upend public television.”

The lawsuit was filed just days after a collection of National Public Radio stations sued President Donald Trump over the same executive order, which blocked the Corporation from Public Broadcasting from funding the networks.

PBS wrote in its 48-page filing that it disagrees with claims made by the executive order, including that federal spending on public media is “corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence” and that the news organization doesn’t present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

“PBS disputes those charged assertions in the strongest possible terms,” the lawsuit states. “But regardless of any policy disagreements over the role of public television, our Constitution and laws forbid the President from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS.”

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, but hadn’t been assigned to a judge as of Friday evening.

White House: PBS supports ‘a particular political party’

White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields wrote in a statement responding to the lawsuit that the “Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.

“Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS. The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.”

The lawsuit says Trump’s executive order violates the law that governs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which gives it independence from politicians who might try to control its programs.

“Congress took pains to ensure that the development of public television would be free from political interference, including with respect to content and funding decisions,” the suit states.

It also claims implementing the order would violate the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“The EO makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech,” the lawsuit states. “That is blatant viewpoint discrimination and an infringement of PBS and PBS Member Stations’ private editorial discretion.”

PBS says federal funds ‘instrumental’ for operations

The lawsuit says the loss of funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting envisioned in the executive order would upend programming at PBS and its member stations throughout the country.

“Public television stations receive approximately $325 million in annual federal funding from CPB, nearly all of which goes to PBS Member Stations,” the lawsuit states. “Those funds, which comprise more than 50% of the overall budgets of certain PBS Member Stations, are instrumental to enabling them to operate, to produce programming that serves their local communities, and to pay PBS dues that make PBS programming and services possible.”

A protester holds a sign in support of funding for public media during a May 1, 2025, rally at the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka as part of a 50501 national day of action. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump urged Congress to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting during his first term, but was largely unsuccessful.

Now, in his second go-around, Trump is once again asking lawmakers to scrap federal spending on the private, nonprofit corporation that Congress established in the 1960s.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocates funding to National Public Radio, or NPR, and the Public Broadcasting Service, or PBS, as well as more than 1,500 local radio and television stations throughout the country.

Trump’s renewed focus on public media — in his budget proposal, an executive order and an expected rescissions request — has led the organizations that benefit from the CPB to start talking more than they have in recent years about their funding and their journalism.

Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR, rejected the idea that ending funding for the CPB would have a significant impact on the federal ledger, since the “appropriation for public broadcasting, including NPR and PBS, represents less than 0.0001% of the federal budget.”

Maher also opposed what she viewed as the Trump administration seeking to influence journalists and news organizations.

“The President’s order is an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities,” Maher wrote in a statement. “It is also an affront to the First Amendment rights of station listeners and donors who support independent news and information.”

Paula Kerger, CEO and president at PBS, also defended the CBP as well as the news programs that receive its funding.

“There’s nothing more American than PBS, and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress,” Kerger said. “This public-private partnership allows us to help prepare millions of children for success in school and in life and also supports enriching and inspiring programs of the highest quality.”

NPR receives about 1% of its direct funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, while PBS receives about 15%. Those numbers fluctuate for the local stations, which tend to get more, but not all, of their operating budgets from CPB funding.

Senate likely to balk

House Republicans, who have sought to zero out funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in recent appropriations bills, are likely to get on board. But senators, who write broadly bipartisan bills, haven’t taken that step and appear unlikely to do so this year — possibly helping public media resist Trump’s cutback attempts, as it did during his first term.

The differences between the House and Senate will lead to heated debate for months to come about future spending on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as well as the dozens of other programs Trump told lawmakers to stop funding in his budget request.

Wisconsin Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin, ranking member on the panel that funds CPB, told States Newsroom during a brief interview she hopes lawmakers “can effectively fight back against that proposed budget.”

“I find that some of my Republican colleagues, especially those from rural states, hear from their constituents that they are reliant on public broadcasting, especially radio for local information, news, etcetera,” Baldwin said. “And there’s not a lot of other radio resources out there. But I think the same can be said about the public television offerings.”

Opinions among Republicans vary, though.

Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy, who sits on the spending panel, said funding for CPB “may have made sense at one time, but the American taxpayer has no business spending half a billion dollars a year subsidizing media.”

Kennedy said he doesn’t expect rural residents will lose access to local television and radio programming should Congress eliminate the funding.

“Rural communities have the same access as everybody else to cable, to streaming, to getting their news off of this thing,” Kennedy said, pointing to his cell phone. “It’s just an argument by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to hold on to a government subsidy.”

Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, pushed back against defunding.

She wrote in an op-ed published in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner that while she shares “the desire to reduce government spending, defunding the CPB, and particularly the essential reporting it allows locally owned radio and television stations to provide in Alaska, is not the place to start.”

Alaska’s local stations received $12 million last year from CPB, which made up between 30% and 70% of their total budget, in addition to individual donation and state funding, according to the op-ed.

“Not only would a large portion of Alaska communities lose their local programming, but warning systems for natural disasters, power outages, boil water advisories, and other alerts would be severely hampered,” Murkowski wrote. “What may seem like a frivolous expense to some has proven to be an invaluable resource that saves lives in Alaska.”

CPB has a state-by-state breakdown on its website detailing how much it provided during each of the past six years. The individual profiles show what portion of each state’s funding went to different programs, like the Next Generation Warning System, radio programming, Ready to Learn and Television Community Service Grants.

Public media among multiple Trump targets

Trump’s skinny budget request, released last week, calls on Congress to cease funding the CPB as well as dozens of other organizations, including the National Endowment for Democracy and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP.

The section on CPB says the request is “consistent with the President’s efforts to decrease the size of the Federal Government to enhance accountability, reduce waste, and reduce unnecessary governmental entities.”

Trump has also signed an executive order directing the CPB Board of Directors as well as executive departments and agencies to halt funding NPR and PBS.

The order stated that the “viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, wrote in a statement responding to the executive order that Trump didn’t have the authority he was trying to wield.

“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority,” Harrison wrote. “Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.

“In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade ‘any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over educational television or radio broadcasting, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees or contractors…’ 47 U.S.C. § 398(c).”

There are also several news reports that the Trump administration will send a rescissions request to Capitol Hill, asking lawmakers to pull back funding already approved for CPB. But the Office of Management and Budget hasn’t yet taken that step.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting received steady funding from Congress starting at its founding, before the last Trump administration asked lawmakers to phase out its appropriation.

The last Trump administration’s first budget request called on lawmakers to “conduct an orderly closeout” by providing $30 million for CPB that would have gone toward salaries, rent and other costs.

The proposal argued that “private fundraising has proven durable, negating the need for continued Federal subsidies.”

“Services such as PBS and NPR, which receive funding from the CPB, could make up the shortfall by increasing revenues from corporate sponsors, foundations, and members. In addition, alternatives to PBS and NPR programming have grown substantially since CPB was first established in 1967, greatly reducing the need for publicly funded programming options.”

Funding increased despite Trump

Congress didn’t go along with the fiscal 2018 budget request for the CPB, and it wouldn’t for the rest of Trump’s first term.

In March 2018, lawmakers approved $445 million, followed by the same amount in the next year’s bill. Congress then lifted spending to $465 million in December 2019 and then again just before Trump left office for a total funding level of $475 million.

Those allocations continued rising during the Biden administration, reaching a $535 million appropriation in March 2024, the last full-year spending law enacted before Trump returned to the Oval Office. 

House Republicans did, however, try to phase out funding for CPB during the second half of President Joe Biden’s term. The House GOP provided a two-year advanced appropriation until 2023, when Republicans announced they wanted “the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to compete with other programs in the bill for annual funding.”

Those efforts didn’t work and the final spending bill, which became law in March 2024, included funding for CPB.

Senate Democrats wrote after negotiating the bipartisan agreement that it “protects funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support more than 1,500 locally owned TV and radio stations nationwide—rejecting House Republicans’ proposal to zero out funding and weaken Americans’ access to local reporting.

“The bill maintains a critical investment of $60 million for digital interconnection and $535 million as a two-year advance appropriation, of which roughly 70% is provided directly to local public TV and radio stations.”

Final resolution far off

Congress is expected to begin work on its dozen annual appropriations bills sometime this summer, which collectively total about $1.8 trillion and make up about one-third of all federal spending. 

The House Appropriations Committee will likely propose phasing out CPB funding, or at least its advanced appropriation, in its bill.

The Senate Appropriations Committee tends to write more bipartisan bills, so as long as several of the panel’s members advocate for CPB in its funding measure, the program will likely receive its advanced funding in that bill.

Final agreement between the House and Senate is supposed to come before the start of the next fiscal year on Oct. 1. But that rarely happens and lawmakers often use a stopgap spending bill to push off final negotiations until mid-December.

That’s likely the earliest this year the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and those who rely on it will learn if Congress will reduce or eliminate its funding. That is, unless lawmakers fail to reach agreement on that particular funding bill.

Congress would then have to use a stopgap spending bill, which mostly keeps funding levels on autopilot, until it can enact a full-year bill.