Nixon was so “disturbed” that PBS had started a new national news show with the hosts Robert MacNeil and Sander Vanocur — someone on his enemies list — that he requested “all funds for public broadcasting be cut immediately,” White House memos released years later showed.

The U.S. Senate narrowly approved on July 16, 2025, a bill that would claw back federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to NPR, PBS and their affiliate stations.

The House approved a Trump administration plan to rescind $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Roughly $1.1 billion of the targeted cut would defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the non-profit that supports NPR and PBS.

Congress just voted to claw back $500 million in funding for public broadcasting. Benjamin Mullin, a media reporter for The New York Times, explains what will happen now to NPR, PBS and the many local stations that rely on the funding.

Congress voted to claw back federal funding to public media. Some of those hit hardest include community radio stations in areas that voted for the president.

With a late-night vote in Congress to cut PBS and NPR funding, Mitt Romney‘s vision has come to pass. During a 2012 presidential debate, the GOP nominee famously pledged to “stop the subsidy to PBS” even though he liked Sesame Street character Big Bird.

In the end, only two Republicans in the House voted against the legislation. But by winning on rescission, Trump might have punched a one-way ticket toward a government shutdown when Congress returns after the August recess. President Donald Trump faces a major spending deadline at the end of September (Getty Images)