Cantwell, Baldwin Mourn CPB's Shutdown; Kennedy Celebrates
Senate Commerce Committee ranking member Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., blamed President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans on Friday night for CPB’s announcement that day that it will end operations when its federal funding lapses Oct. 1 (see 2508010061). Trump signed off in late July on the 2025 Rescissions Act to claw back $1.1 billion of CPB's advance funding for FY 2026 and FY 2027 (see 2507250047). The Senate Appropriations Committee also advanced its FY26 Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee spending bill last week without language to restore that funding (see 2507310062).
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“Republicans' reckless elimination of federal funding has forced [CPB] to shut down -- eliminating the entity that distributes federal grants to public broadcasters across the country,” Cantwell said in a statement. “CPB's shutdown will hurt smaller communities the most -- cutting off grants to stations serving rural and Tribal communities that depend on public broadcasting for critical emergency alerts, educational programming, and local news coverage. As natural disasters continue to plague all corners of our country, we should be strengthening public media, not dismantling it.”
Baldwin, Senate Appropriations LHHS ranking member, blamed Trump and Republicans for “forcing” CPB’s wind-down. “Public media isn’t about profit or politics,” she said. “It’s about people -- who rely on public broadcasting for news and emergency alerts. Republicans have turned their backs on them.”
Senate LHHS member John Kennedy, R-La., celebrated that CPB “will soon be no more.” He referred to CPB as “the scheme bureaucrats used to funnel taxpayer money to NPR and PBS" and its demise as "great news for every American who doesn’t want their tax dollars funding left-wing opinion journalism EVER again.”