Today's News to Watch and Action to Take (Friday, May 9, 2025)
📺 Defunding Public Media: Executive Overreach Targets PBS, NPR, and the Public’s Right to Learn
Curated by Engage for Democracy | May 9, 2025
📺 Defunding Public Media: Executive Overreach Targets PBS, NPR, and the Public’s Right to Learn
📰 Executive Summary
The Trump administration has initiated two sweeping actions aimed at stripping public broadcasting of its federal support—despite clear statutory protections and constitutional limits on executive authority. (1) an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to defund NPR and PBS, and (2) a separate move by the Department of Education to terminate a long-standing educational grant supporting PBS Kids programming. These actions appear to violate the Public Broadcasting Act, the Impoundment Control Act, and potentially the First Amendment, and they defy the constitutional principle that only Congress controls federal funding. CPB, NPR, and PBS have all publicly declared the executive order unlawful, and legal challenges are underway.
🧵 Two Interwoven Threads of Executive Action
1️⃣ Executive Order to Defund CPB, PBS, and NPR
On May 1, 2025, President Trump issued an executive order instructing CPB’s board to “cease federal funding” for NPR and PBS, citing perceived political bias.[¹] The CPB swiftly responded, declaring that the president lacks the legal authority to issue such a directive. CPB is not a federal agency—it is a private nonprofit established by Congress, explicitly protected from executive control.[²]
PBS President Paula Kerger called the order a “blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night.”[³] NPR echoed that sentiment, calling the order “an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America.”[³]
Passed by Congress, and signed into law by the President, the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 expressly forbids “any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States” from exerting direction or control over CPB or its grantees.
2️⃣ Termination of the Ready To Learn Grant
On May 2, 2025, the Department of Education notified CPB that it was terminating its Ready To Learn grant for the 2020–2025 cycle, effective immediately.[⁴] The grant, authorized under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, has funded iconic PBS Kids programming for three decades—including Molly of Denali and Work It Out Wombats. CPB immediately instructed PBS and 44 grantee stations across 28 states and D.C. to halt all work.
The administration justified the move by claiming the programming promoted “woke propaganda,” targeting “racial justice educational programming.”[⁵]
CPB emphasized that this action halts programming used by millions of families, particularly in rural and low-income communities. More than 1.8 billion video streams and 10.2 million viewers were reached in the last fiscal year alone.[⁴]
📚 Understanding the Law: The Public Broadcasting Act and Its Safeguards
🎯 Purpose of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
The Public Broadcasting Act was passed with bipartisan support to promote educational, cultural, and civic engagement through non-commercial media. It created CPB as a nonpartisan, nonprofit corporation independent from the executive branch, ensuring that no administration—Democratic or Republican—could politicize or interfere with public programming.[²]
Congress structured CPB to distribute funds, not produce content or operate stations, ensuring that public media remained free from political pressure.
🧾 How Laws Work—and Why the President Cannot Override Them
🔨 Can the President Repeal or Defund a Law?
No. Laws cannot be overturned by executive order. Only Congress can amend or repeal the Public Broadcasting Act or choose not to reauthorize funding in future appropriations.
Congress already appropriated $535 million for CPB in FY2025 and extended funding through September 30, 2027, in a recent bipartisan stop-gap bill.[³] That funding is binding. A president cannot nullify it based on ideology or opinion.
📚 Civics Reminder: Article I, Section 9 of the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive power of the purse. Presidents must execute the law—not ignore it.
📉 What Action Could the Executive Branch Take that was legal?
✍️ The Rescission Process (Impoundment Control Act of 1974)
If the administration wants to cancel previously appropriated funds—like those for CPB or Ready To Learn—it must follow the Impoundment Control Act:
Submit a formal rescission request to Congress.
Congress has 45 legislative days to approve the cancellation by majority vote.
If Congress takes no action, the funds must be released.[⁶]
📌 As of today, no such request has been submitted. This means the executive order and grant cancellation may both constitute unlawful impoundments of congressionally appropriated funds.
⚖️ What It Violates: Constitution, Law, and Democratic Norms
🛡️ Constitutional Violations
Article I, Section 9: Only Congress has the authority to appropriate or cancel funding.
First Amendment: Targeting media organizations for perceived ideological bias may constitute unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination—a form of content-based regulation the Supreme Court has repeatedly held to be among the most egregious violations of free speech. In Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia (1995), the Court ruled that the government may not fund speech on a subject while excluding certain viewpoints on that subject.[¹²] Similarly, in Board of Education v. Pico (1982), the Court found that public officials cannot remove content from libraries simply because they disagree with its ideas.[¹³] Government defunding of public media based on its perceived viewpoint isn't neutrality—it’s retaliation, and the First Amendment directly prohibits using public power to punish protected expression.
⚖️ Rule of Law Violations
Public Broadcasting Act of 1967: Protects CPB from executive interference
Impoundment Control Act of 1974: Prohibits withholding funds without congressional approval.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act: Funds allocated via statutory process cannot be canceled mid-cycle without due cause.
🧭 Erosion of Democratic Norms
Politicizing public media undermines civic education and community resilience.
Using federal power to punish perceived enemies, rather than uphold the law, reflects authoritarian governance—not democratic leadership.
🔍 Connecting the Dots: Project 2025 and the Assault on Public Media
While President Trump has publicly distanced himself from the Heritage Foundation’s 900-page Project 2025 blueprint, his administration’s actions closely mirror its proposals—including the targeting of public media. Project 2025 explicitly calls for Congress to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and strip NPR and PBS of their public service classification, claiming they no longer “act in the public interest.”[¹¹] FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr, who authored the plan’s chapter on broadcast regulation, has already initiated investigations into NPR and PBS member stations. These actions align with Project 2025’s stated goal to eliminate public media’s classification as a public service—effectively dismantling nonpartisan civic infrastructure under the language of neutrality.
🆘 Public Media Saves Lives—Especially in Rural Communities
While the administration frames its executive order as a fiscal or ideological matter, the real-world consequences are much starker, especially for rural America. Public media is not just about documentaries and children’s programming—it’s often a lifeline in moments of crisis.
When Hurricane Helene struck Western North Carolina in September, local public station Blue Ridge Public Radio became the only source of emergency information for some residents after power, internet, and cellular networks went down. Survivors used hand-crank radios to access updates on food, medical care, and shelter. The station suspended all regular programming for weeks to serve its community.[¹⁴]
This is not an isolated example. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides grants to over 1,200 independent radio stations and 365 television stations, many of which operate in news deserts where local journalism has collapsed. These outlets are often the only non-commercial, fact-based sources of information in times of disaster and disruption.
President Trump’s executive order would prohibit stations from using CPB funds to pay for national programming like Morning Edition or PBS NewsHour—content that often forms the backbone of rural stations’ schedules and public trust. The result would be a cascading collapse of local capacity, especially in places where pledge drives and donor bases are already thin.
“Congress must stand firm in its commitment to defending a free and independent press and recognize the White House’s defunding efforts for what they are: a direct attack on truth, accountability, and democracy,” said PEN America’s Tim Richardson.[¹⁴]
🧭 On the “They Don’t Deserve Our Tax Dollars” Argument
Some have argued—like a recent USA TODAY columnist—that NPR and PBS display bias and therefore don’t deserve public funds.[⁸] Others, like filmmaker Ken Burns and PBS President Paula Kerger, counter that public media is among the most American institutions we have: nonpartisan, locally grounded, and mission-driven to serve the public with fact-based content, free from commercial influence.[⁹] These perspectives reflect a tension as old as democracy itself: freedom of speech means freedom to disagree—but disagreement does not justify defunding laws.
Public broadcasting was born during a time of unrest and racial division, but it modeled a more inclusive vision. On Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Fred Rogers invited Officer Clemmons, a Black police officer, to cool their feet with him in a shared wading pool in 1969—a quiet but radical gesture when pools were still segregated across much of the country.[¹⁰] Sesame Street showed kids how to celebrate diversity, not fear it. This wasn’t “woke.” It was constitutional. It was aspirational. And it remains a lifeline for many.
The Constitution does not promise agreement. It promises equal protection. It grants freedom of the press. And it vests the power of the purse not in the presidency, but in Congress.
If our nation chooses to end public media funding, it must do so through the legal process—not through executive orders that violate the law or defund programs based on perceived political disagreement.
And consider this: the entire CPB budget is about $1.60 per citizen, per year.
In a democracy, we don’t defund lawfully created institutions because they challenge us. We protect them—so they can challenge us all.
📚 Sources
¹ Executive Order, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media,” May 1, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/ending-taxpayer-subsidization-of-biased-media/
² Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, 47 U.S.C. §396, https://cpb.org/aboutpb/act
³ NPR, “Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't,” May 2, 2025,https://www.npr.org/2025/05/02/nx-s1-5384790/trump-orders-end-to-federal-funding-for-npr-and-pbs.
⁴ CPB, “CPB Statement on U.S. Department of Education Terminating Ready To Learn Grant,” May 6, 2025,https://cpb.org/pressroom/CPB-Statement-US-Department-Education-Terminating-Ready-Learn-Grant.
⁵ USA Today, “Funding for PBS children's shows killed by Trump administration citing ‘woke propaganda’,” May 8, 2025,https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/05/08/ready-to-learn-pbs-kids-funding/83522232007/.
⁶ Impoundment Control Act of 1974, 2 U.S.C. §681 et seq., https://www.gao.gov/products/095406
⁷ U.S. Constitution, Article I, Section 9, Clause 7, https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/article-1/section-9/clause-7/
⁸ USA TODAY, “NPR has a right to exist. That doesn't mean it has a right to my tax dollars,” May 9, 2025,https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/05/09/trump-pbs-npr-public-funding-liberal-bias/83493574007/.
⁹ The Hill, “America at 250: Why we need public media now more than ever,” May 7, 2025,https://thehill.com/opinion/congress-blog/5285762-public-media-under-threat/.
¹⁰ Biography, “Fred Rogers Took a Stand Against Racial Inequality When He Invited a Black Character to Join Him in a Pool,” June 24, 2020,https://www.biography.com/actors/mister-rogers-officer-clemmons-pool.
¹¹ CBS News, “How Trump's policies and Project 2025 proposals match up after first 100 days,” April 29, 2025,https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-project-2025-first-100-days/.
¹² Rosenberger v. Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia, 515 U.S. 819 (1995), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/515/819/.
¹³ Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico, 457 U.S. 853 (1982), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/457/853/.
¹⁴ PEN America, “Defunding public media will hit rural communities in the US hardest,” May 7, 2025,https://pen.org/defunding-public-media-will-hit-rural-communities-in-the-us-hardest/.
📬 Civic Actions to Take
To take action to support Public Media and to stand up for Constitutional, legal and democratic norms that are being contravened by the administration, consider one (or more!) of the following easy actions to take:
1) 📩 Email your Senators and Representative all at once in 3 easy steps:
Copy the message below
Click here to Go to Democracy.io
Paste the message (personalize if you’d like), fill in your info, and click Submit
📝 Message to Congress
Subject: Uphold the Law and Protect Public Media from Unlawful Executive Overreach
I’m writing to urge you to take immediate action to uphold the Constitution and protect the integrity of federal law in response to recent executive actions aimed at defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), National Public Radio (NPR), and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
The President’s May 1 executive order directing the CPB to cease funding for NPR and PBS raises serious constitutional and statutory concerns. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 established CPB as a private, nonprofit corporation, independent from the executive branch, and funded through Congressional appropriations. It was created precisely to shield public media from political interference.
Congress—not the President—holds the constitutional power of the purse under Article I, Section 9. Attempts to unilaterally rescind funding already appropriated by law violate not only the separation of powers, but also the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. Moreover, targeting public media based on perceived political bias treads dangerously close to unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, in violation of the First Amendment.
Public media plays an essential role in our democracy—providing free, accessible, fact-based news, educational programming for children, and, in many rural areas, serving as the only reliable source for emergency broadcasts. Efforts to dismantle this infrastructure under the guise of ideological neutrality do not serve the public interest; they undermine it.
I respectfully ask you to:
Publicly affirm the constitutional role of Congress in controlling appropriations;
Investigate the legality of the executive actions taken against CPB, NPR, and PBS;
Oppose any efforts to defund or dismantle public media outside the proper legislative process;
Strengthen protections for public media as a critical pillar of civic life and national resilience.
This is not about politics. It is about the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the right of every American to access independent, trustworthy information. I urge you to stand firmly in defense of these democratic foundations.
2) 📲 Text RESIST to 50409 or message via facebook.com/resistbot (where you can send an email, text, or fax!)
Copy the message below (and personalize if you’d like)
Text RESIST to 50409 or Message Via facebook.com/resistbot
📝 Message
I’m writing to urge you to oppose the President’s executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to defund NPR and PBS. Congress alone controls federal spending under Article I of the Constitution. This executive action appears to violate the Public Broadcasting Act, the Impoundment Control Act, and potentially the First Amendment.
Public media is not only a trusted source of news and education—it’s a critical lifeline in rural and underserved communities, especially during emergencies.
Please defend the rule of law, investigate the legality of this order, and publicly affirm that funding decisions must go through Congress—not be dictated by political preference.
Thank you.
3) ☎️ Make a Call through 5Calls.Org to support public media. Use the above message or the 5Calls script provided with this link. 5Calls.Org: Oppose Funding Cuts to NPR and PBS
4) Sign a petition or share your story about Public Media at one of the following:
Protect My Media https://protectmypublicmedia.org/
Common Cause https://www.commoncause.org/actions/save-pbs-from-gop-budget-cuts/
📣 That’s today’s edition. We’ll be back next Monday, Wednesday and Friday on our new publication rhythm. Until then:
📢 Share widely—because when executive power grows unchecked, the responsibility to defend the Constitution and public services rests with us.
🕊️ We invite you to watch Kermit The Frog sing the Rainbow Connection (an Engage for Democracy favorite). 🕊️
💪 With clarity, conviction, and care,
Engage For Democracy