Trump Moves to Cut Funding for 2 Media Outlets

President Trump has long made clear his disdain of the mainstream media, but now he's putting more teeth on that by closing the government's wallet on two major broadcasters. The commander in chief on Thursday added to his record-breaking executive-order blitz with yet another EO, this time directed at mandating that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting cut off federal funding to National Public Radio and the National Broadcasting Service, better known as NPR and PBS, reports the AP.

"The media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options," reads the order, titled "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media." "Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence." The White House posted an accompanying "fact sheet" that detailed specific gripes against NPR and PBS, including a complaint that NPR "refused to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story," and that PBS' Sesame Street presented a "one-sided narrative" in its children's programming about racism after the Black Lives Matter protests.

In an online post, the White House accused NPR and PBS of receiving "millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'" The two outlets get about a half billion dollars from the CPB, though the New York Times notes that they receive "only a small portion of their funding from Congress, with the rest coming from donors and sponsors." The taxpayer-supported private agency is also funded two years ahead of time, "to protect it from political maneuvering," so it's not yet clear what kind of immediate impact Trump's directive will have.

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PBS and the CPB haven't yet commented on the executive order, but on Friday, NPR issued a statement. "Eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would have a devastating impact on American communities across the nation that rely on public radio for trusted local and national news, culture, lifesaving emergency alerts, and public safety information," the broadcaster noted. (More President Trump stories.)