Trump Orders NPR & PBS Defunded; Public Media Says "Nice Try, But Congress Holds the Purse Strings"

Well folks, it seems President Donald Trump has identified the real threats to America, and they apparently include... Terry Gross and the soothing tones of the PBS NewsHour. Late Thursday night, in a move that screams "Friday news dump" but landed with a thud of WTF anyway, the President reportedly issued an executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS."

His reasoning? According to his recent social media tirades, these publicly-supported media organizations are nothing less than "radical left 'monsters' that SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!" He urged Republicans to "DEFUND AND TOTALLY DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES" from these bastions of... well-reported news and children's educational programming, apparently.

Now, setting aside the sheer drama of declaring war on the folks who brought you Sesame Street and in-depth investigative journalism, there's a rather large, inconvenient elephant in the room: the President can't actually do that.

Leaders of NPR and PBS, along with a chorus of legal experts and media observers, were quick to point out a fundamental civics lesson. Federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – which then distributes grants to local NPR and PBS stations – is appropriated by the United States Congress. That's right, the legislative branch, the folks actually in charge of the nation's purse strings. The President can propose budgets, he can sign or veto spending bills passed by Congress, but he generally can't just issue an executive order to unilaterally turn off a funding spigot that Congress has already opened and intends to keep open.

As Colorado Public Radio reported, Congress has already allocated funding for the CPB through September 2027. For Trump to "cease" that funding via executive fiat would be a blatant overreach of executive power and a direct infringement on Congress's constitutional authority of the purse. Public media executives essentially responded with a polite but firm, "Thanks, but no thanks, that's not how this works."

So, what's the play here?

• Is it a genuine, albeit legally dubious, attempt to cripple organizations Trump perceives as critical?

• Is it a symbolic gesture to fire up his base and rail against supposed "liberal media bias"?

• Is it a distraction from other, perhaps more legally sound but equally controversial, administration policies?

• Did someone just forget to tell him how federal appropriations work?

Whatever the motive, the spectacle of the President of the United States issuing an executive order to defund beloved (by many, anyway) public broadcasters, only to be immediately told "you can't actually do that, sir," is a masterclass in performative governance. It's an attempt to wield executive power like a cudgel against perceived enemies, even when the cudgel is made of legislative styrofoam.

This isn't just about funding for news and children's shows; it's about the separation of powers, respect for congressional authority, and the ongoing attempts to silence or intimidate media outlets deemed insufficiently loyal. And for today, it's a truly baffling Daily Dose of WTF.

Sources:

• Colorado Public Radio. "Trump says he's ending federal funding for NPR and PBS. They say he can't." May 2, 2025.

• Politico. "Latest and breaking political news today." (General news context for May 2, 2025).