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TRUMP CAN HURT PBS AND NPR, BUT HE CAN’T KILL THEM  
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Josef Adalian
July 17, 2025
New York Magazine
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_ Killing funding to CPB is expected to have devastating effects for
many public radio and TV stations. CPB grants keep smaller stations
— including many in Trump-loving rural America — afloat. _

Big Bird and friends, screen grab

 

Remember Mitt Romney, the former GOP nominee for president and U.S.
senator from Utah who got all sorts of favorable press coverage for
every once in a while acting as if he were opposed to Donald Trump’s
MAGA brand of “conservatism”? While Romney’s personal distaste
for Trump was almost certainly genuine, on most major political
issues, the two men are soul mates. So today, Romney should be
toasting his supposed nemesis for all but accomplishing something he
(and many other Republicans) has been trying to do for decades: kill
federal funding for public broadcasting
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Early this morning, the Senate approved Trump’s budget-recession
bill that will almost immediately claw back about $535 million in
already approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
which spends most of its budget on grants to local PBS and NPR
stations. (The funding had been approved for the next two years, so
the overall cutback will total a bit more than $1 billion.) Romney
famously made defunding public broadcasting a cornerstone of his 2012
run for the White House, telling voters it was a waste of resources:
“I happen to think it’s immoral for us to keep spending money we
don’t have and passing on to our kids our obligations,” he said,
arguing the private sector could replace PBS. “We’re not going to
kill Big Bird, but Big Bird is going to have advertisements.” Romney
lost, and Congress continued to keep spending (relatively tiny)
amounts on public broadcasting.

But this week, Trump — always looking for a shiny object — is
forcing his minions in Congress to muscle through a bill that ends the
modest subsidy for the CPB (along with billions in foreign aid and
other noble causes). There’s a small chance the House won’t be
able to give final approval before a Friday deadline, but even if it
doesn’t, it seems likely Trump will eventually find a way to cut off
the funding so he can brag about doing something “lame”
Republicans like Romney never could.

The good news, such as it is, is that this move doesn’t mean PBS
will stop airing _Masterpiece_ or NPR will cancel _All Things
Considered_. PBS and NPR have long gotten most of their funding from
sources outside of government, something that makes the rantings of
Romney and Trump all the more repugnant and hypocritical. Unlike the
BBC or CBC — true national broadcasters which get most of their
funding from their respective governments — PBS has always relied on
private grants and audience donations. It’s exactly the sort of
public-private partnership Republicans supposedly favor, and while
it’s meant PBS and NPR have never been nearly as essential or
prolific in their programing as other national broadcasters, it has at
least made both institutions somewhat immune from a wannabe autocrat
like Trump either shutting them down _or_ taking them over to serve
his own purposes. (If you don’t think either would be an option,
just look at what the White House is trying to do to Voice of America
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Still, killing funding to CPB is expected to have lots of devastating
effects at the local level for many public radio and TV stations. CPB
grants help keep a number of smaller stations — including many in
Trump-loving rural America — afloat. Without this funding, many of
these outlets are going to have to either make massive programming
cuts, reduce staff, or, if the worst fears are realized, go off the
air completely. That will mean many small towns and cities will be cut
off from vital sources of information and independent journalism —
all because Republicans like Romney and Trump think NPR and PBS are
wastes of money and biased against conservatives.

There are a few things people who support public broadcasting can do
if the House makes the cuts official. You can set up a recurring
donation to your local PBS or NPR station or increase your donation if
you already give. NPR offers NPR+ [[link removed]], which
starts at $8 a month and offers ad-free podcasts and other perks. And
over at PBS, you can do something that helps your local stations while
also giving you something much better than a tote bag in return: Sign
up for PBS Passport
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free app that offers many recent episodes of its shows on-demand,
Passport unlocks a giant library of PBS drama and educational and
cultural programing — including Vulture faves like _All Creatures
Great and Small_
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Peacock (or other commercial streamers), there’s no set price for
Passport, though there is a minimum donation of $5 per month. But you
can also give $100 a year or $15 a month — whatever you can afford
to help offset the loss of federal funding. And the beauty here is
that the Passport subscription charge is really a direct donation to
your local PBS station, as is a membership to NPR+.

So if you’re upset about what the party of Romney and Trump is doing
to public broadcasting, you have the power to at least partially undo
their actions. It’s hardly ideal, but for now, it’s arguably the
best weapon PBS and NPR have in their battle to survive this latest
assault on their very existence.

_Josef Adalian joined Vulture as West Coast editor in 2010 and has
been covering the television industry since 1992, including a decade
at Variety. He also writes Buffering
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streaming wars._

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