Many U.S. House of Representatives Seek to End Federal Funding for National Public Radio

Many Republican representatives in Congress are pushing for new legislation to defund the NPR and PBS radio stations

A new bill has been introduced following recent accusations by the G.O.P. Members of Congress that the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) are hosting partisan programming.

The resulting No Partisan Radio and Partisan Broadcasting Services Act (H.R. 2443), which is currently in committee, would effectively end federal funding for both NPR and PBS, wrote The New York Times. 

France24 added that U.S. President Donald Trump had posted on his own Truth Social Platform that “NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms... should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY.” 

The bill is being led by legislator Marjorie Taylor Greene, who told the hearing that they will be “calling for the complete and total defunding and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).” 

Founded almost 60 years ago, the CPB is a nonprofit that oversees US public media funding and has already had its budget approved by Congress until 2027 with more than $500 million in funding.

“The content that is being put out through these state-sponsored outlets is so radical it is brainwashing the American people, and more significantly American children,” Greene told the heads of NPR and PBS. 

She further criticized the stations for allegedly being “anti-family, pro-crime fake news,” and for supposedly pushing a political agenda that included “the LGBTQ indoctrination of children” and “the systemic racism narrative.” 

The Republicans’ stance in Congress saw blowbacks from Democrat representatives, including Jasmine Crockett, who said Greene wants “to shut down everybody that is not Fox News,” a broadcaster preferred by many conservatives.

NPR’s CEO Katherine Maher estimated that NPR received $120 million from the CPB in 2025, which is “less than five percent” of its total budget.

When asked by a Republican representative if NPR could survive without the funding, Maher explained that “it would be incredibly damaging to the national radio system. If federal funding for our network goes away, it means that people in rural parts of America would be harmed.”

PBS would also be severely impacted as it receives much more of its budget from the federal government — about 15% of $373 million, NYT reports. 

According to the Pew Research Center, around a quarter of American adults believe that public media should be defunded, while 43% disagree. 

From data provided by the stations, over 40 million Americans tune in to NPR at least once a week, and over 36 million watch their local PBS station each month.