Trump Renews Call to Defund NPR, PBS

President Donald Trump renewed his call to defund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), escalating his ongoing criticism of the publicly funded media outlets. 

His statement came just one day after top executives from NPR and PBS faced a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill, where Republican lawmakers intensely questioned them about alleged bias in their reporting and the use of taxpayer funds.

The hearing, held on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, was led by the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE), chaired by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). During the session, NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger were grilled by GOP lawmakers who accused the broadcasters of promoting a liberal agenda. Republicans pointed to specific instances, such as NPR’s handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story during the 2020 election and its coverage of COVID-19 origins, as evidence of editorial bias. Maher acknowledged during the hearing that NPR’s leadership viewed the decision to downplay the Biden laptop story as a mistake, a point seized upon by lawmakers like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio).

Trump’s renewed push to defund NPR and PBS followed his comments earlier in the week, where he described the networks as a “waste of money” and expressed his desire to see them stripped of federal support. In a late-night post on Truth Social, Trump wrote, “NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms (Networks!), should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY.” 

🚨 JUST IN: President Trump tells @brianglenntv that he’d LOVE to defund propaganda outlets NPR and PBS

YES! DO IT! 🔥

“I would love to do that. I think it's very unfair, it's been very biased, the whole group. The kind of money that's being wasted, and it's a very biased… pic.twitter.com/fUDmUzPh2h

— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) March 25, 2025

He reiterated this stance on Thursday, aligning himself with GOP figures like Greene, who concluded the hearing by announcing plans to call for the “complete and total defund and dismantling” of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides federal funding to NPR and PBS.

The Wednesday hearing saw Republicans argue that NPR and PBS no longer serve as trusted, neutral news sources for Americans, with Greene labeling their content as “communist” and out of touch with the public. Some lawmakers, including Rep. James Comer (R-Texas), expressed a complete loss of confidence in public media, asserting it should not receive federal funding. Meanwhile, Democrats on the subcommittee, such as Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas), defended the broadcasters, accusing Republicans of distracting from more pressing issues and using the hearing to attack the free press.

Trump’s call to action reflects a long-standing Republican effort to reduce or eliminate government funding for public media, a goal he pursued unsuccessfully during his first term when Congress rejected his proposed cuts to the CPB. 

About a quarter of U.S. adults (24%) say Congress should remove federal funding from NPR and PBS, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted March 10-16. A larger share (43%) say NPR and PBS should continue to receive funding from the federal government, while 33% say they are not sure.

The funding structures for NPR and PBS are complicated, and much of their revenue comes from nongovernment sources like member donations and corporate sponsorships. But the proposed bill would ban all federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which has received $535 million annually in recent federal budgets. The CPB helps to fund NPR and PBS both directly and through individual local public media stations, many of which pay NPR and PBS in the form of membership or programming fees.