(C) Daily Kos
This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered.
. . . . . . . . . .
Trump tells Republicans Corporation for Public Broadcasting must go - some Republicans balk [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-11
Donald Trump is trying to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which includes the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. The funding for the Corporation was designed to keep it out of the hands of politics. As a result, they are funded fully two years ahead. But a recission bill can still take it away for future fiscal years. The president can impound funds, and the Congress can take it away.
"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."
The all caps command. It's not his bill, it's a House bill that passed last month by a margin of 214-212. Chuck Schumer is threatening to block the debt limit hike needed before Sept. 30th if the Senate passes the bill. The MSDNC attempted insult Trump almost always uses instead of MSNBC.
"Any Republican who votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement."
That's pretty clear. He means to primary anyone who doesn't vote for it.
"Thank you for your attention to this matter!"
Again, his famous third person sign off. What he really means is if you weren't paying attention, you're in trouble. You need to be reading my Truth Social posts, otherwise you don't know what's happening.
Republicans don't like the appropriated funding being clawed back either. But along with trying to take back the $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, it also rescinds $8.4 billion in foreign aid. Trump wants to stop it all. He didn't get every last little bit with closing down USAID. There's money there for PEPFAR, the President's Emegency Plan For Aids Relief. Trump would rather let people die because he thinks only homosexuals get it. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the Appropriations Committee chair, is specifically against the PEPFAR removal.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis, warned that if Trump and Republicans "can undermine the appropriations process by rescinding bi-partisan funding on a simple majority vote, that presents real challenges to the appropriations process. Moving forward, it's our job in the next few days to make sure that Republicans know that this would be a major trust factor in moving forward with our appropriations bills."
Bobby Kogan, a former Senate Demoratic budget aide, said, "If you can break bipartisan appropriations deals with partisan recission packages, that is going to be the end of bipartisan appropriations."
Trump has already used the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 to withhold funds in many areas, but to rescind them completely takes an act of Congress.
CPB is fully funded through Sept. 30, 2027, but that's the danger of this recissions package. Congress can revoke funding for fiscal year 2026 and 2027 even though the whole funding for CPB was designed to avoid this very thing from happening. When one political party holds all the reins, democracy can disappear with the Republicans, where democracy gets done with Democrats.
Trump tried to executive order them out of existence on May 1st with "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization Of Biased Media." Trump ordered the CPB to stop funding NPR and PBS and sent the DOJ after them for DEI. They've weathered that so far. Taking away the money to operate would shut them down on October 1, 2025.
The Congressional Research Service has a June 18th report of the status of funding (PDF).
The Public Broadcast Act of 1967 that created the CPB is only available as a faded photo PDF. It was, however, codified as 47 U.S.C. 396. It actually lays out the funding from 1978 to 1993. There are so many amendments at the end of the code text that it's impossible to go through them to find where the funding specification for two fiscal years is, because it wasn't in the original Act. It makes it impossible to know without going through them if there are any tricks that can be played that indemnified the Corporation from exactly what is happening. We just have to go on the basis that Trump and the Republicans can actually do what is in the recission bill.
Senators Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska along with Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota, want to amend the package to keep the CPB funding intact. Just needs one more Republican to stop JD Vance from casting a deciding vote. That's if the three and a forth don't cave like they did for the Big Ugly Bill.
There are three federal cases against the Trump administration over his executive order. One each for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Public Broadcasting Service, and National Public Radio.
The CPB's suit starts out with the fact that CPB is a private corporation, not a government agency. Trump does not have the power to shut it down. He does not have a power to change its board of directors either. But he's trying to do both. The PBS and NPR suits are like add-ons to the CPB suit with their histories of operations before tackling Trump's illegal order.
Trump is trying to take down PBS and NPR because they are majority funded by Congress, and because they report the news as it really is, without a Fox News spin. Their programming is viewed as biased by Republicans, simply because it's been a traditional gripe, and now Trump says so. MAGA follows. They've probably never watched a show. Their kids may have never seen Sesame Street. The uneducated make their children follow suit.
If you go to NPR.org to read the news, all some point this may pop up, and it's at the bottom of every article:
If you go to PBS.org, you get this:
They need help in all the ways you can, but right now it would be calling, emailing, texting Republican Senators to vote against the bill, at their peril, but showing they can fight for the right and have a spine. It can happen.
Trump is doing his best to destroy the US Agency for Global Media, Voice of America, and all the other parts of USAGM.
We need to keep all of these out of Trump's reach.
[END]
---
[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/7/11/2332778/-Trump-tells-Republicans-Corporation-for-Public-Broadcasting-must-go-some-Republicans-balk?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web
Published and (C) by Daily Kos
Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified.
via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds:
gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/
