President Trump said Tuesday during a White House meeting that he’d be happy to see public broadcasters National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service lose their federal funding, Fox News reports.
“Well, I would love to do that,” Trump told a reporter who inquired about the DOGE Subcommittee Hearing “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.”
“I think it’s very unfair,” Trump said. “It’s been very biased. The whole group, I mean, a whole group of them. And frankly, there’s plenty of — look at all the media you have right now. There’s plenty of coverage.”
NPR CEO and President Katherine Maher and PBS CEO and President Paula Kerger both testified on Wednesday on why the funding should continue despite a DOGE press release asking why “the demonstrably biased news coverage they produce for an increasingly narrow and elitist audience should continue to be funded by the broad taxpaying public.”
Less than 1% of NPR’s funds come straight from the U.S. government. Additional money comes indirectly via grants and dollars allocated to local member stations. Those stations then pay fees back to NPR.
Trump says the federal money received by the mainstream news outlets is going to waste. “They spend more money than any other network of its type ever conceived, so the kind of money that’s being wasted, and it’s a very biased view, you know that better than anybody,” Trump said. “And I’d be honored to see it end. We’re well covered. Look at all the people that we have here today. We’re well covered, and we don’t need it, and it’s a waste of money especially. I don’t even know what DOGE’s recommendation is. I assume their recommendation is to close them up.”
In her testimony Wednesday, Maher acknowledged NPR could have done a better job reporting the Hunter Biden laptop scandal during the 2020 election campaign. “Our current editorial leadership believe that was a mistake, as do I,” she said. Yet Maher maintained that NPR’s reporting operation is fair and objective, pushing back on allegations of left-leaning bias. “I’ve never seen any instance of political bias” at NPR, she said during the hearing.