2025 lookback: Trump yanks federal funding from NPR in move conservative advocates said was long overdue

NPR was long lambasted by President Donald Trump and other Republicans as a left-leaning institution that didn’t deserve taxpayer money, but after years of banter, federal funding was finally cut in 2025. 

Trump said he "would love to" remove federal funding outlets NPR and PBS during a meeting at the White House in late March – and he fulfilled that goal in July when he signed into law his roughly $9 billion rescissions package. 

The package included over $1 billion in cuts from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the government-backed funding arm for NPR and PBS. The clawback package teed up cuts to "woke" spending on foreign aid programs and public media, as Republicans finally yanked federal money from NPR in a move advocates said was long overdue.

NPR CEO KATHERINE MAHER VENTS 'DEEP FRUSTRATION' OVER GOP CUTS, SAYS IT WILL CONTINUE TO OPERATE

NPR had long been a target of President Donald Trump and other Republicans, who argued the outlet’s left-leaning coverage didn’t warrant taxpayer funding — a battle that ended in 2025 when federal dollars were cut off. (NPR logo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images. Trump photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)

Once Trump returned to the White House, stripping public media of federal funding began to emerge as a realistic possibility after longtime NPR editor Uri Berliner spoke out about the public radio outlet in 2024 with a Free Press essay. Berliner, who detailed the "absence of viewpoint diversity" at the organization, criticized NPR’s coverage of Russiagate, the COVID lab leak theory and Hunter Biden’s scandalous laptop, among other issues.

Amid the fallout, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., invited NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS News CEO Paula Kerger to testify in March about what Greene called their "blatantly ideological and partisan coverage" amid a debate over public funding.

In her opening remarks, Maher said NPR plays an essential role in "delivering unbiased, nonpartisan, fact-based reporting" to Americans. Maher eventually conceded during her congressional testimony that her organization missed the mark in its lack of serious coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop story. 

RURAL NPR STATIONS ‘DISAPPOINTED,’ DETERMINED TO SURVIVE AFTER RESCISSION PACKAGE ELIMINATES FEDERAL FUNDING

President Trump said he "would love to" remove federal funding outlets NPR and PBS during a meeting at the White House in late March. (Adam Gray/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Maher also expressed regret about remarks she made about Trump before she ran the outlet.

Once Trump signed the rescissions package into law, Republicans celebrated it as a victory for cutting off the flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to what they called "woke" initiatives.

"This is not just a symbolic win. It’s a concrete step toward ending government support for media organizations that openly advocate for one side of the political spectrum. American taxpayers should not be forced to underwrite the very networks that routinely seek to discredit their beliefs," Media Research Center President David Bozell wrote for Fox News Digital. 

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"This will not bankrupt them, but it will require them to compete and justify their existence," he continued. "Trump made a promise to stop funding partisan propaganda, and he kept it."

At the time, Maher expressed "deep frustration," but she vowed NPR would continue operating.

NPR has, indeed, continued to operate, relying on benefactors, member donations, and corporate sponsorship.

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