The House of Representatives narrowly approved legislation Thursday to eliminate the next two years of federal funding for public media outlets.
It did so at the direct request of President Trump, who has accused NPR and PBS of bias against conservative viewpoints as part of his broader attacks on the mainstream media.
The measure passed largely along party lines, 214 to 212, with two key Republican lawmakers switching their votes from “no” to “yes” to push it over the finish line.
The legislation is the first request by the Trump administration for Congress to claw back money it already has approved through annual spending bills. The bill reflects a list of cuts totaling $9.4 billion that were requested by the Office of Management and Budget. The bulk of the cuts — $8.3 billion — are to foreign aid programs addressing global public health, international disaster assistance and hunger relief.
The remainder would slash $1.1 billion allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which distributes nearly all of the funds to local television and radio stations, for the next two fiscal years. By law, that money is supposed to be approved in advance as part of an effort to insulate public broadcasting from political influence over fleeting issues. That spending had been approved by both Republican-led chambers of Congress and signed into law by Trump earlier this year.