‘Waste of Money’: Trump Axes Taxpayer Funding for NPR, PBS

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on Thursday night axing taxpayer funding for “biased” news outlets NPR and PBS.

“National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service receive taxpayer funds through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” the order says. “Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today, the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options. Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”

Trump ordered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting board of directors and all executive departments and agencies to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.

At the end of March, Trump said National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service are a “waste of money” and that he would “be honored” to defund the taxpayer-funded networks.

“It’s been very biased,” Trump said of NPR and PBS. 

“They spend more money than any other network of its type ever conceived,” the president continued. “So, the kind of money that’s being wasted—and it’s a very biased view—you know that better than anybody; I’d be honored to see it end.”

The White House released a list of examples of “radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news’” propagated by NPR and PBS:

NPR apologized for calling illegal immigrants “illegal” in an X post.

NPR regularly promotes irreversible “transgender” procedures for children as “gender-affirming care” without referencing the long-term and harmful side effects of such medical and surgical interventions.

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe interviewed a transgender-identifying minor who goes by the name Nola Rhea about his decision to begin medically transitioning to appear as a girl at only 14 years old.

In 2021, a New York PBS station aired a “children’s program” that featured a “drag queen” named “Lil’ Miss Hot Mess” promoting a book called “The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish.”

An NPR reporter did an interview diving into the “connection between people who identify as genderqueer and dinosaurs.” Transgender author and science writer Riley Black told NPR, “There is a whole community of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts online.”

NPR hosts Ben Brock Johnson and Amory Sivertson then explored what happens when you type “dinosaur” into the LGBTQ subreddit.

“Hundreds of results, with pride dinos, rainbow dinos, dino moms, dino dads, and a lot of puns. Like, Ally-saurus,” Sivertson said.

“Trans-ceratops,” Johnson added.