PBS President Says Trump’s Executive Order to End Funding Is “Blatantly Unlawful”

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Paula Kerger isn’t just accepting the budget cuts from Trump for PBS and NPR quietly; instead, it seems she might challenge them in a court of law.

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, PBS President and CEO Kerger described Trump’s recent executive order as “unlawful in its essence,” stating that it potentially hinders our longstanding commitment to providing educational content to the American public for over half a century.

During a conversation with The Hollywood Reporter on Friday, PBS President and CEO Kerger labeled Trump’s latest executive order as “illegal” and expressed concern that it might jeopardize our ongoing mission of delivering educational programming to the American public since the 1960s.

Kerger also took a pretty good shot at how — and when — Trump put this into motion.

As a devoted supporter, I’m expressing my concerns about the President’s sudden, questionable Executive Order, issued under cover of night, which potentially jeopardizes our long-standing commitment to providing educational content to the American public through PBS. We are diligently investigating various strategies to ensure that PBS can carry on serving our affiliate stations and all Americans uninterruptedly.

Here, Kerger isn’t working on her own. Patricia Harrison, who heads the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as its President and CEO, shares the same viewpoint. They both believe that Trump doesn’t hold direct control over the funding.

Harrison stated on Friday that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) isn’t a federal executive agency answerable to the President’s authority. Instead, it was specifically established and financed by Congress as an entirely autonomous private non-profit organization, separate from the federal government.

When establishing CPB, Congress specifically prohibited any U.S. department, agency, officer, or employee from having any authority to guide, manage, or control educational TV or radio programming, or the CPB itself, its grant recipients, or their contractors,” Harrison explained.

Last night, I found myself reflecting on an executive order penned by Trump. As a gamer, I’ve always cherished the spirit of fair play, and this order struck me as a game-changer for news media. He argues that the government’s financial backing of news outlets is antiquated and superfluous – a relic from the past. But more importantly, he sees it as a potential threat to journalistic integrity, tarnishing the transparency that forms the backbone of our fourth estate. In essence, he believes this arrangement erodes the trustworthy image of independent journalism.

The White House asserted that neither PBS nor NPR provides a balanced, truthful, or impartial portrayal of current events for taxpayers. They proposed that the CPB Board should terminate the ongoing financial support for these entities as much as legally possible, and furthermore, refrain from providing future funding.

According to a fact sheet given to THR by PBS, it’s estimated that each individual contributes approximately $1.60 toward public broadcasting annually. The document further explains that over 70% of the funds collected are directly allocated to local public television and radio stations.

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2025-05-02 18:54