NPR and PBS bosses vow to challenge Trump administration’s federal funding cuts

NPR and PBS leaders announced on May 4th that they would challenge President Donald Trump’s executive order to slash public subsidies to both organizations, saying it was ‘blatantly unlawful.’ Trump signed the order late Thursday, alleging ‘bias’ in the broadcasters’ reporting.

The CEOs of NPR and PBS declared they were looking into options to challenge the Trump administration following the president’s executive order to cut public funding to news and media organizations. Trump and congressional Republicans have threatened to cut funding to the organizations for months, with both leaders of PBS and NPR testifying before the House DOGE panel in March to defend their federal funding.

Patricia Harrison, the chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said the White House had no legal authority over the companies, as NPR vowed to challenge the order, calling it ‘an affront to the First Amendment.’ In March, Trump issued an executive order seeking to hollow out Voice of America (VOA) — another independent, government-funded media organization the president had long accused of bias — but a judge has since blocked that order.

U.S. media unites to resist Trump’s proposed funding cuts

PBS CEO: Trump Administration Is Coming After Us In Different Ways

Paula Kerger: "This is different. They're coming after us on many different ways… So we have never seen a circumstance like this, and obviously we're going to be pushing back very hard, because what's at risk… pic.twitter.com/ZiWtgbWDxF

— Mr Producer (@RichSementa) May 4, 2025

NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger said they were both looking at legal options after Trump signed an executive order last week to slash public subsidies for both organizations. They also explained why his order stood out from previous attempts to cut their government funding.

Maher said potential funding cuts would hit local stations and their audiences the hardest, adding that NPR had 246 member organizations with newsrooms in every state. PBS’ Kerger also added that Trump’s ‘blatantly unlawful’ executive order, issued in the middle of the night, threatened her media organization’s ability to serve the American public with educational programming as it had for over five decades.

“We’re looking at whatever options are available to us…I think it’s a little preliminary for us to be able to speak to specific strategies that we would take.”

~ Katherine Maher, CEO of NPR

Kerger also said the industry had never met a circumstance like this, adding that both organizations were ‘obviously’ going to push back ‘very hard’ because U.S. stations, public television, and public radio stations across the country were at risk.

Trump says he would ‘love to’ defund both NPR and PBS

Trump said on April 29th that he would ‘love to’ defund both NPR and PBS, saying that the government was wasting so much money on the “whole group,” which was “very unfair” and “very biased.” Trump and his allies have continually come after NPR and PBS for what they have allegedly called ‘a left-leaning bias’ funded by the government. Trump attempted multiple times to slash the budget for public broadcasting during his first term, going on to call NPR a ‘liberal disinformation machine’ last year.

Trump said the media landscape was filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options, and government funding of news media in this environment was outdated, unnecessary, and corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.

However, NPR’s Maher said public media corporations will vigorously defend their right to provide essential news, information, and life-saving services to the American public. At the same time, PBS’s Kerger pointed out that U.S. media will challenge Trump’s recent executive order “using all means available.”

The current administration has — in a matter of months — shut out the Associated Press (AP) from covering White House events, stripped media outlets, including NPR and POLITICO, of their traditional workspaces in the Pentagon, shuttered the government-funded Voice of America, and reopened investigations into television networks over multiple alleged offenses — many having to do with the promotion of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

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