At The White House's Request The House Voted On A First Batch Of Unpopular DOGE Cuts Yesterday

Bye-Bye Small Town NPR?

60% of Americans say Trump’s birthday parade tomorrow is a bad use of government funds— and that includes 72% of Independents. (More than a third of Republicans agree.) Public broadcasting, however, is another matter… and we’ll be seeing exact numbers on that very soon, since, yesterday, as part of a bundle of rescissions of money that had already been approved, over a billion dollars of support for NPR was clawed back. With Trump’s assault on Los Angeles in full swing, it’s difficult to start thinking about all the other odious moves he’s making— like unleashing Israel to bomb Iran and yesterday’s vote to defund public broadcasting.

The vote to defund was incredibly close— 214-212. It could have easily gone the other way. How? If Democrats didn’t have so many old-beyond-retirement age fossils in their caucus. 3 died this year and haven’t been replaced yet. Meanwhile, 4 other Democrats didn’t bother showing up to vote yesterday— Joyce Beatty (OH), Lou Correa (CA), Donald Norcross (NJ) and Emily Randall (WA). There were 4 Republicans who voted with the Democrats: Brian Fitzpatrick (PA), Nicole Malliotakis (NY), Mike Turner (OH) and Mark Amodei (NV) and the Democrats still lost.

Before the vote, Aaron Pellish talked with Republicans in Congress whose constituents include people who count on public broadcasting. He wrote that “For smaller stations— many of which are in rural parts of the country— the funding makes up critical chunks of their yearly operating budgets. Many of them are being forced to plan how they’ll survive the cuts, if they can at all, public media executives say. Local leaders say the cuts would not only deprive their audiences of news and educational programming, but could also lead to a breakdown of the emergency broadcast message infrastructure that is critical for communities with less reliable internet or cellular service. ‘That would mean an almost immediate disappearance of almost half our operating budget,’ David Gordon, executive director of KEET in Eureka, California, said of the rescission proposal. ‘Assuming [KEET] would continue, it would be in a very, very different form than it is right now.’”

The bill also included $8.3 billion in foreign aid cuts. “Approximately 19 percent of NPR member stations count on CPB funding for at least 30 percent of their revenue— a level at which stations would be unlikely to make up if Congress approves the rescissions, according to an NPR spokesperson. Ed Ulman, CEO of Alaska Public Media, predicts over a third of public media stations in Alaska alone would be forced to shut down ‘within three to six months’ if their federal funding disappears. PBS CEO Paula Kerger said in an interview she expects ‘a couple dozen stations’ to have ‘significant’ funding problems ‘in the very near term’ without federal funding. And she believes more could be in long-term jeopardy even if they survive the immediate aftermath of the cuts. ‘A number of [stations] are hesitant to say it publicly,’ she said. ‘I know that some of our stations are very, very worried about the fact that they might be able to keep it pieced together for a short period of time. But for them, it will be existential.’ Smaller stations with high dependency on federal funding may be forced into hard choices about where to make cuts.” 

Pellish reported that “Brian Duggan, general manager of KUNR Public Radio in Reno, Nevada, said he’s optimistic about the chances of the House voting down the funding cuts, particularly after talking with his local member of Congress, Rep. Mark Amodei (R-NV), who co-signed a statement opposing cuts to public media on Monday. ‘I maintain optimism… based on my conversations with the congressman,’ Duggan said. ‘I will just hold out hope to see what happens ultimately on the House floor.’” Amodei voted against the cuts, but other Republicans with important NPR presences in their districts voted yes anyway. Not a peep, for example, was heard from Wisconsin Trump ally Derrick Van Orden, whose sprawling district includes at least 9 NPR stations in La Crosse, Eau Claire, Steven’s Point, and smaller ones serving rural counties Van Orden claims to look out for: Wood (Auburndale), Grant (Plattesville), Adams (Adams) and Pierce (River Falls) counties. 

There are over 50 NPR stations catered all over Alaska and Nick Begich was taking his career in his hands by voting to defund them. Pellish wrote that the state’s senator, Lisa Murkowski, taking into account that Alaska’s stations “are among the most dependent on federal grants in the country, told Politico on Wednesday she’s concerned about stations in her state and is trying to get the package changed… [W]hile larger stations in well-populated metro areas have broader, wealthier donor bases to draw on for additional support, many rural stations can only expect so much help from their community. Some of the stations in rural areas are forced to navigate the added complication of asking for donations from Republican voters as Trump rails against the public media ecosystem.”

In Iowa’s first congressional district, tens of thousands of residents listen to local NPR stations based in Iowa City, Burlington, Bettendorf, Davenport, Cedar Rapids and Ottumwa. Yesterday, their congresswoman, Mariannette Miller-Meeks didn’t even blink when she voted to defund them. Her progressive opponent, Travis Terrill, told us that she and the rest of her party voted like that because NPR “tells the truth— not because it’s biased. It covers science, healthcare, climate and labor without turning it into political theater. It’s just honest reporting. But the problem is, all the attacks on science, healthcare, climate and labor tend to come from people like Mariannette Miller-Meeks. They don’t want informed Iowans… they want quiet ones. They don’t want citizens. They want subjects. NPR threatens that.”

No matter the squawking out of MAGA Mike’s and the White House’s comms teams, this isn’t about fiscal responsibility, waste or duplication nor any of the other half-baked euphemisms they’re trotting out this week. This is about silencing a source of trusted, independent information— especially in communities where there isn’t a well-funded alternative. Republicans have spent decades demonizing NPR and PBS, not because of bias, but because they provide something the GOP can’t control: facts. It’s the same reason Trump wants to “restructure” the civil service, why Florida bans AP African American Studies, and why book bans are spreading like wildfire. If the GOP can’t dominate the narrative, they’ll burn down the institutions that carry it.

Cutting off funding to rural NPR affiliates is strategic (not to mention heartless). Republicans know exactly who these stations serve: older, isolated, and often conservative-leaning voters who still want local news, emergency alerts, weather updates, and educational programming. But today’s GOP doesn’t mind hurting its own base if it means punishing a perceived cultural enemy. This is an effort to force-feed Fox to everyone by choking off the alternatives— especially in places where internet access is spotty and Sinclair’s reach is limited. In other words, it’s not just censorship by omission; it’s ideological arson.

The hypocrisy is thick enough to drown in. These are the same Republicans who pretend to worship small towns and rural values— until it comes time to help actual rural communities. They claim to revere the Constitution, but cheer attacks on a free press. They perform support for veterans, but gut the emergency broadcast systems that warn of fire, flood or mass evacuation. And they love to whine about “elites,” but now want to make sure the only news anyone in Red America gets is filtered through a billionaire-funded propaganda machine. This isn’t a part of normal budget bickering. It’s a slow-motion purge of civic infrastructure— deliberate, cynical, and aimed right at the cultural and informational lifelines of small-town America. It’s about consolidating power and shutting down dissent.