Cutting PBS and NPR funding is Trump’s attempt to control what we do and think
Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor, took to X to criticize the passing of a bill that cuts public broadcasting funding. Reich declared that President Trump is trying to control what we do and what we think. He is not the only one criticizing this bill. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse portrayed this move as an effort to defund “perceived political enemies”, including public radio and Sesame Street. Whitehouse also claimed that this would starve children overseas.
From Fox News:
Following the Senate, the House of Representatives voted 216 to 213 to pass President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package late Thursday night. When signed by Trump, it will block $8 billion in funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and $1 billion to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which funds PBS and NPR — for the remainder of the fiscal year.
PBS NewsHour co-anchor Geoff Bennett reacted to the vote on X, stating, “This is a perilous moment for public media — but the resolve is stronger than ever. If you value independent journalism, educational programming, and trusted local coverage, please support your local PBS or NPR station.”
Other liberals weighed in on the bill’s passage. Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich posted a reaction to the vote on X.
“The Senate just passed Trump’s request to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for public broadcasting. Why is Trump so hell-bent on gutting funds for PBS and NPR? It’s part of a larger plan — one where he can control not just what we do, but what we think,” he wrote.
Additionally, Reich’s post featured a video of him explaining to Sesame Street character Elmo how Trump is cutting funds to PBS in order to control information throughout the country.
“And Trump, like past authoritarians, wants to control not just what we do, but also how we think,” he said in the video.
Additional Reading:
Hays, G. (2025, July 18). Prominent liberals and media figures declare cuts to PBS, NPR a ‘perilous moment’. Fox News. Link.
Category: Democrats, Donald Trump, Media, Politics, Society
A vast wasteland…indeed!
Well…
True that!
Today’s “No Shit!” moment.
PBS and NPR have been in the business of telling us what to think and do for YEARS now.
And I haven’t tuned them in for over 30 years, so I don’t quite know how Trump is going to control what I think.
That is the thing right there. I haven’t listened to NPR since they went full bore into supporting terrorism.
PBS I used to watch for the old house repair show, back when I owned an old house, and the Antique roadshow. Haven’t watched either one in a while now. Their news show was anti gun, pro abortion and pro globalism so really no point in watching that.
Speaking of terrorism and the radio…. This idiot from VOA who was also an Anne Arundel County Reserve Police Officer, threatened to kill a member of Congress from the control room of the radio station. He did it multiple times over the years. Since he did it from work they can revoke his pension now as well as send him to prison.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/ex-voice-america-employee-allegedly-threatened-murder-marjorie-taylor-greene-her-family
You might think NPR or PBS might report in it since it was so close to home but strangely they didn’t. Gosh I wonder why that was?
It’s been 20+ years since I have listened to PBS. There were a couple of shows on there that told educational type stuff about places all around the world. I can’t even remember the names. They were already leaning left then, but you could overlook it. It got to the point where you could overlook it any more.
F’em! Bye!!!!
Had a high-speed CPT from the Northeast who listened to NPR in ROTC. He scheduled our big LandNav/compass course at our rural fly-over post we used because “there’d be no one in the woods that weekend” on the schedule. We actually did it– was realistic, I’ll give him that. First day of deer season. (His family didn’t hunt.)
I listen to PBS & NPR sometimes.
I don’t buy into their property and the bullshit but their classical music is pretty sounding.
I guess we’re gonna be hearing their fundraising more than every quarter now.
Fuck them I’ve never given them a penny, outside of the government giving them my tax money.
They also have a shit ton of endowment so fuck them they don’t need our tax dollars.
.🖕🖕🖕🖕
We listen to a stream of Classical music from an NPR-related station.
Still have to put up with their bull-crap racist “black composers” program – turn it off at that point & back on later.
As for the rest of NPR/PBS – good riddance.
Sen. Angus King got his leftism start by reading the news on
Maine PBS.
Will Bob Ross start painting angry little clouds now?
Junior maybe, senior has been dead for a while.
Didn’t think the snark tag was needed.
Yes, I voted for this…
“If you value independent journalism, educational programming, and trusted local coverage, please support your local PBS or NPR station.”
Can’t agree with that statement enough. If you value it, it has value, and hence, you should pay for that value. Hack Stone does not listen to NPR. Hack Stone does not watch PBS. So Hack stone does not value NPR or PBS. Hack Stone should not have to support a service that he does not use and has no interest in using.
mine and your tax dollars fund these 2 stations and the people that I listen to on the radio have to pay do re mi bucks so that they can run their talk radio and the above stations get our tax dollars plus advertisers bucks.
Lars tears.
Can we get rid of another money waster called AMTRACK , we’ve allowed this to kill any free competitive railway to enter the US and AMTRACK gets bailed out yearly , theyve never made a profit in its existence, id bet theyve never broke even as well and the trains are as old as the service
Yes!
The big problem with Amtrak is that the Feds run it, an entity the literally couldn’t even run a whorehouse in Nevada!
Wasn’t Joe there when they drove the Golden Spike at Promentory Point?
Oh no! Don’t cancel Amtrak!
Biden still uses it and on track to accumulate a billion miles.
Ditch all routes except the one that goes to his beach chair.
How else would he get across the Key Bridge with his ghostly conductor?
Dipshit Senator Mark Warren of Virginia made a comment about how people in rural America will suffer, because they get their news and weather warnings from public radio and T.V.
He went on to compare the recent flood, envoking Texas as example, which garnered a lot of responses from Texans.
Politicians like him are so out of touch, he doesn’t realize that means of communication in rural areas has greatly improved, and not limited to just AM radio and 3 T.V. channels.
He also forgets that rural areas have access to satellite radio, T.V., internet, and that a vast majority of radio stations provide emergency alert warnings…not just the two stations Demotards are upset about defending.
I also find it amusing how they were calling for the FCC to revoke Fox and other conservative platforms for the messaging being broadcast that they disagreed with, but are now claiming an attack against the First Amendment and how countless of people will suffer or die for losing access.
There are enough small cities with TV and radio stations that overlap bigger markets to some degree.
Has PBS ever broke in with “Breaking News” and then talked forever on a subject they have no updated info to pass along? Weather warnings?
Sounds like Mr Warren is more concerned about Sesame Street not being able to introduce more LGBT crap to young minds, and the radio show “All things considered ” having to proceed with money received from “generous viewers/listeners like you”.
That, or he’s getting a nice kickback from the gravy train. I would bet the latter.
I grew up in a deeply rural area. PBS provided exactly zero warnings or guidance on anything. KID AM radio broadcast weather alerts, school closures, farm reports, all of it. Huge coverage area. PBS was for Masterpiece Theater.
The last time that Hack Stone watched PBS with any regularity was back in the mid 1970’s to catch The Monty Python Show.
And why does Sesame Street need taxpayer dollars? The income generated from their swag would more than cover the operational costs for PBS and NPR. But if they had to pay the overhead, you know that they would look to trim some of the fat from the payroll. The corporate world does DOGE all of the time.
Children’s Television Workshop was one of those well intentioned government programs that evolved into just another graft-ridden boondoggle.
And yet had the same result. Elmo became a Nazi and invaded Poland.
https://babylonbee.com/news/elmo-leads-division-of-panzers-across-polish-border
I never did trust that red bastard.
The only miss with the Trump Admin is the handling of the Epstein files. Other than that, he is touching all the bases with almost every swing.
Robert Reich?
Isn’t that Bill Clinton’s evil dwarf?
The one that hated Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and Walter E. Williams with a passion?
Yup. Secret commie, as well.
But, think of the children….
Jay is old enough to remember QUALITY educational TV for kids in the morning (Letter People, 321 Contact, Ghostwriter, Square One, etc) and rando news in the evening. Lawrence Welk/Austin City Limits on the weekend. Masterpiece Theatre Sunday evenings.
What the hell do they even SHOW anymore?
They still have Masterpiece Theater, but dropped the “Theater” and added a bisexual, just like Disney. The first Bi was Gillian Anderson, now it is Alan Cummings.
PBS = Public Bull Shit. I use to like to watch the nature channel, till they started adding left wing talking points. The programming always featured left leaning messages and innuendo. I shut the sound off when I watch the show now. Even that doesn’t stop the subtle images of left wing ideology. I don’t think defunding went far enough. They should have to register as a political group and list donors. Or lose their license.
NPR, if they could just shut up and play classical music.
It’s not like he is trying to create a government agency regarding “misinformation” and how to prosecute those who pander “government identified misinformation”.
Back when I was in a truck every day my radio would loose what ever station I was listening to as I traveled around Vermont. It is very hilly here and even xm radio is interrupted in places. I would fill in the dead zones with VPR. That’s Vermont public radio. It gets into every nook and cranny in the state. It was like snooping on the opposition.
I’m just one little person in this great country, but the last times I regularly listened to NPR or watched PBS were, well, never. Unless you count growing up with Sesame Street, but even then, I quickly transitioned to GI Joe and my dad’s VHS collection.
I’ve had XM, and now SiriusXM since 2007, so terrestrial radio including NPR hasn’t been anything more than an annoyance when I’ve driven vehicles besides my own. I would, on occasion, listen to some classical music or catch some person droning on about something and stay tuned in to put some miles behind me, but that was the lesser of two evils when making the drive between Knoxville and Nashville, where nearly every FM station is Christian music and sermons.
As for TV, I switched from cable to satellite in 2012, then just went with antennas from 2016 to 2018 before switching to watching YouTube content. I did inadvertently tune to PBS in a training area at Fort Benning in 2018, though. We were miles away from any sort of power, so I brought my DeWalt power station, a 22″ TV, and an antenna, and turned on the Joy of Painting in the middle of nowhere. I believe it was the Mailed Foot training area, which was fitting because we were 2-54 IN “Mailed Foot”. Earlier cycles would see us doing the final FTX at the Malone MOUT site or other training areas much closer to Sand Hill.
All that to say, cut the funding. NPR and PBS will survive–or they won’t–but they’ve both outlived what usefulness they might have had.
The Left~~”But it’s PUBLIC radio! It’s PUBLIC television!!”
Trump~~”Exactly. Let the public fund it”.