Donald Trump Threatens To Withhold Support For Lawmakers Who Vote Against Effort To Defund PBS, NPR And Public Media

UPDATED: Donald Trump said that he will withhold support or endorsements for any lawmaker who votes against a White House effort to roll back funding for foreign aid and public media.

The Senate next week is expected to consider a package to rescind $9.4 billion in funding, including $1.1 billion already allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over the next two years.

Trump posted on Truth Social on Thursday, “It is very important that all Republicans adhere to my Recissions Bill and, in particular, DEFUND THE CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (PBS and NPR), which is worse than CNN & MSDNC put together. Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

Trump’s attack on public media is just the latest in his efforts to undermine media outlets that produce and air content that he doesn’t like. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is the entity set up by Congress to distribute grants to public media outlets.

The House passed the rescissions package last month, 214-212, with four Republicans joining all Democrats against. In the Senate, some Republicans want to revise the rescissions package, and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said on Wednesday that there would likely be an “amendment process” during next week’s vote.

Per Politico, some Senate Republicans want to change the bill to reduce cuts to AIDS prevention, healthcare and local public stations. Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) has spoken against cuts to rural broadcast stations, per NBC News. The legislation has to pass by July 18, or the funding will remain as allocated.

Advocates have been blanketing social media, PBS’s website is topped with a warning about the pending vote, and figures like Ken Burns have spoken out about the value of public media.

On that note, after Trump’s post, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr went after a PBS outlet in Kansas for an ad urging supporters to call their senators in advance of the vote.

Carr wrote on X, “Federal law prohibits noncommercial stations—including PBS ones—from accepting money in exchange for airing political issue ads. I’ve asked the FCC’s enforcement team to determine whether or not that happened here. I would encourage PBS & NPR to focus more on how they managed to lose America’s trust. That is their problem, not Congress’s work to ensure good stewardship of taxpayer dollars.”

A recent YouGov poll, though, showed that Americans do have a high degree of trust in PBS as a news source, ranking it just below The Weather Channel and the BBC.

PBS and NPR have each sued Trump over his executive order to prohibit funding to the networks. The impact, though, likely will have a greater impact on local stations, which get more than 70% of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s appropriations.

Democrats are expected to stay united in opposition. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has warned that the rescissions package risks Democratic cooperation this fall as Congress needs to pass a new government funding bill. That will require Democratic cooperation to reach the 60 votes to overcome a filibuster. By contrast, the rescissions package requires just a simple majority in the Senate to pass.

“It is absurd to expect Democrats to play along with funding the government if Republicans are just going to renege on a bipartisan agreement by concocting rescissions packages behind closed doors that can pass with only their votes, not the customary 60 votes required in the appropriation process,” Schumer said this week. “Sixty-vote processes almost always ensures bipartisanship.”

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