People participate in a rally to call on Congress to protect funding for PBS and NPR outside the NPR headquarters in Washington, DC, on March 26, 2025.
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee pushed back against the Trump administration’s bid to kill federal funding that Congress already has approved for public broadcasting and international aid programs.
In President Trump’s request to Congress, sent last month, he justified the cuts because the targeted foreign aid programs were “antithetical to American interests,” and because “[f]ederal spending on [the Corporation for Public Broadcasting] subsidizes a public media system that is politically biased and is an unnecessary expense to the taxpayer.”
In a hearing Wednesday, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins, who chairs the committee, noted in the case of public broadcasting that 70% of the federal dollars targeted for rescission support local programming and emergency communications. She acknowledged concerns about NPR’s news coverage, which she said “for years has had a discernibly partisan bent.”
“There are, however, more targeted approaches to addressing that bias [at NPR] than rescinding all funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Collins said.
In response to a later question, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought testified that emergency broadcasting services funded by CPB would be safe. He also argued that because the CPB rescission doesn’t apply to the current fiscal year, local stations would have “ample time to adjust” and “they should be more judicious” about who they pay for content.
Upon further questioning by Alaska Republican Lisa Murkowski, who has come out against the public broadcasting cuts, Vought committed to working with her on funding for rural stations. Yet he reiterated that Republicans have spent years trying to address public funding of content.
The vast majority of the $9.4 billion in cuts requested by the White House are to foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.
But the package also includes a cut of nearly $1.1 billion in funding for 2026 and 2027 for CPB. The private nonprofit sends most of that money to local public television and radio stations across the country. PBS receives about 15% of its annual revenue through CPB, while NPR gets about 1% directly. Indirectly, NPR also receives some of the money going to member stations, who pay the network to air its programs.
The rescissions measure narrowly passed the House earlier this month, 214 to 212, with two key Republican lawmakers switching their votes from “no” to “yes” at the last minute to get it over the finish line. The House held a hearing earlier this year at which many Republicans accused PBS and NPR of being woke and biased against conservative viewpoints.
On Wednesday, Sen. Patty Murray, the leading Democrat on the panel from Washington, raised concerns about the legality of the White House’s budget request. According to the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, both chambers of Congress must approve such requests by a simple majority within 45 days of submission. Murray criticized the proposed cuts to the CPB, stating that they would impact over 1500 local public TV and radio stations, especially in rural areas. She emphasized the importance of the funding for providing free, high-quality programming for children to stimulate their thinking and curiosity.
During an exchange with Murray, Vought defended the budget cuts by highlighting changes in the implementation of programs like public broadcasting and PEPFAR. He argued that funds were being diverted to advocacy and social engineering projects that do not align with American taxpayer values. Despite Democratic opposition, the White House needs to secure Republican support for the bill.
Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell expressed reservations about cutting foreign aid programs, citing the importance of building relationships in regions like the Middle East. While acknowledging the need for reform, he criticized the administration’s chaotic approach, warning of creating vacuums for adversaries like China to exploit.
This article, originally reported by NPR’s Scott Neuman with input from Deirdre Walsh, underlines the ongoing debate over budget cuts and foreign aid. The content has been adapted for a WordPress platform while preserving key points and maintaining the integrity of the original HTML structure.
