> President Donald Trump issued an executive order aiming to end federal support of NPR and PBS “to the maximum extent allowed by law.”
AFAICT, if this goes through (i.e. government personnel follow Trump's request to do something maybe-illegal) it would affect ~1% of NPR's funding and ~16% of PBS'.
> "The order’s legality is dubious at best — Congress appropriates funds for public broadcasting, and the president doesn’t get a magic eraser for programs he doesn’t like."
This kind of "the law says the money shall be used for something, but I dun wanna" problem, Presidential abuse of impoundments, was also a contributing factor in Nixon's impeachment. [0] [1]
AFAICT, if this goes through (i.e. government personnel follow Trump's request to do something maybe-illegal) it would affect ~1% of NPR's funding and ~16% of PBS'.
> "The order’s legality is dubious at best — Congress appropriates funds for public broadcasting, and the president doesn’t get a magic eraser for programs he doesn’t like."
This kind of "the law says the money shall be used for something, but I dun wanna" problem, Presidential abuse of impoundments, was also a contributing factor in Nixon's impeachment. [0] [1]
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[0] https://protectdemocracy.org/work/impoundment-threat-explain...
[1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/02/16/presidential-impoundmen...