Congress rescinds $9 billion meant for foreign aid, NPR and PBS : NPR

People participate in a rally to call on the congress to protect the financing of American public broadcasters, the public Broadcast Service (PBS) and the National Radio (NPR), outside the headquarters of the NPR in Washington, DC, on March 26, 2025.

Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images

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Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images

The Chamber approved a Trump administration plan to cancel $ 9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $ 1.1 billion for the company for public broadcasting (CPB) – a decision that reduces all the federal support for the NPR, the PBS and their member stations – and about 7 billion dollars in foreign aid.

The vote from 216 to 213 included all the Republicans except two in favor of the cuts. The bill goes next to President Trump for his signature.

Immediately after the vote, the CEO of NPR, Katherine Maher, published a statement calling for the Cup an “irreversible loss” to the public radio system. She said that the effect would be “an unjustified dismantling of beloved local civic institutions and an act of congress which does not take into account public will”.

“Public funding has made it possible to flourish in a single American system for uneven culture, informational and educational programming, and has provided access to an alert and vital emergency in times of crisis – all for around $ 1.60 per American, each year. Parents and children, senior citizens and students, said Maher, Maher.

The representative of North Carolina, Alma Adams, was one of the Democrats who increased to defend public broadcasting. “When Hurricane Helene devastated western North Carolina last year, public broadcasting was there when traditional communications failed,” she said. “General power, cell and internet failures meant that for thousands of North Carolinians, public radio was the way they received their news.”

The move of the House follows a “vote-a-rama” at the end of Wednesday and early Thursday in the Senate to consider a series of amendments in the termination package-all except one failed on largely online votes of the parties. The Republicans voted several times to block the changes at the request of President Trump, known as the termination. The only amendment that was adopted was aimed at protecting Pepfar, the US Aida Relief initiative created under President George W. Bush.

The voting of the Chamber Thursday means that CPB will lose $ 1.1 billion intended to finance it over the next two years, while the bill also reduces $ 7.9 billion in other programs. CPB acts as a conduit for federal money at NPR, PBS and their member stations. Although NPR, which produces news programs such as Morning edition And Well -considered,, is based on direct federal funds only for a small part of its budget, it is approximately 1,000 member stations Get a heavier part of their operating income via CPB.

The network has warned that many of these stations – in particular those that disseminate rural areas or to the united public, such as the Amerindians – could be forced to close following the decline in funding.

Southern Dakota Republican Senator Mike Rounds announced this week that he had entered into an agreement to use the money allocated during the Biden administration to continue to finance 28 stations in the Nine -states auditors. However, the president and chief executive officer of the Aboriginal public media, Loris Taylor, described the compromise as “structurally impractical”, in a letter to the rounds.

The CEO and president of PBS, Paula Kerger, said Thursday that the decision to reduce public broadcasting “goes against the will of the American people, the vast majority of which trust PBS and think that we offer excellent value to their communities.”

With its night HOUR NEW PBS and children’s programming, as Daniel Tiger districtPBS obtains approximately 15% of their income thanks to CPB.

“These cuts will have a significant impact on all our stations, but will be particularly devastating for smaller stations and those used as large rural areas,” said Kerger. “Many of our stations which allow access to a single local programming and free emergency alerts will now be forced to make difficult decisions in the weeks and months to come.”

A Harris survey last week revealed that 66% of Americans support federal funding for public radio, the same share calling for good value. Support included 58% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats. The online survey questioned 2,089 American adults with an error margin of 2.5 percentage points.

In recent years, NPR has landed more and more in the conservative reticle, who have accused the network of leftist political prejudices and “awakened” programming. Last year, the publication of a test written by the commercial editor of NPR Uri Berliner with regard to the coverage of the network only strengthened the concept, providing ammunition to NPR detractors.

In the piece Published by The Free Press, an online site adopted by journalists who believe that the consumer media are too liberal, Berliner has argued that an NPR campaign for greater diversity in his work had in fact reduced the point of view of the network.

Shortly after the publication of the play, Berliner was suspended and resigned later and became editor -in -chief of the free press. The director of NPR news, Edith Chapin, responded to Berliner’s test saying that the network covers “a wide range of difficult stories” and that this inclusion between its staff and supply “is essential to tell the nuanced stories of this country and our world”.

On Thursday, the Republican representative of Nevada, Mark Amodei, echoes the remarks by the senator from Alaska, Lisa Murkowski, the need for legislators to protect local stations while recognizing the anger of the Conservatives at NPR and PBS. “If you are angry with the editorials, that’s good. But you shouldn’t be angry with stations,” he said, speaking to journalists on Thursday. “And, oh, by the way, you should look where these stations are, because it’s a lot of Trump countries, and they are not the problem. And therefore cutting them from the funds do not seem very well thought out.”

Democrats and Republicans also expressed their concerns about the termination process – a rare decision that has not been attempted for a quarter of a century. Legislators have declared that the termination would make it more difficult for legislators to adopt future bills of credits to finance the government before a deadline of September 30.

“The only way to finance the government is to bring at least seven democrats to vote with us at the end of September 30, or we can enter a closure,” said senator Thom Tillis, RN.C. “If I am a democrat and you try to be voted and reach a threshold of 60 votes to finance the government, and you have just betrayed a previous agreement and a previous credit – what is the probability that they will do this?”

In a letter to the Democrats of the Senate this month, the leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer of New York, described the package of ruptures of “affront to the process of bipartisan credits”.

“This is why a certain number of Senate republicans know that he is absurd so that they expect Democrats to act as business as usual and to engage in a process of Bipartisan credits to finance the government, while plotting simultaneously to pass a bill on purely partisan attributions to defeat these same negotiated programs on a bipartite basis behind the scenes”.

Before the voting in Thursday’s chamber, the director of management and the budget on Thursday, Russell Vought, told journalists that the administration would soon send “probably” another resistance package to Capitol Hill.

“There is always a great enthusiasm for these bills on cancellations, because the congress wants to be part of the vote for these cuts and make them permanent,” said Vought during a breakfast organized by the Christian Science Monitor.

Meanwhile, the representative Don Bacon, R-Neb., Called the version of the Senate of the bill “Better than the one we sent” because it deleted $ 400 million in Pepfar cuts. Bacon, a first Republican Holdout who launched his vote to support the package last month, said that Chamber President Mike Johnson had given him local public television stations in future credits processes.

“I sat down, I said: ‘I will vote for [it] If you can assure me that PBS will be funded this upcoming cycle. And they huddled, and they returned and said yes, “Bacon said.” I take the speaker in the word. “”

He added that he hadn’t had additional conversations with Johnson about how it would work.

Disclosure: This story has been written and reported by the NPR correspondent, Scott Neuman and the NPR Washington Lexie Schapitl office producer. It was published by the management of publishers Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. As part of the NPR protocol to account for himself, no manager of the company or the director of the news examined this story before its publication publicly.