US House strips PBS, NPR of funds as Trump vows more DOGE bills

A half century of US federal funding for public television and radio came crashing to an end as the House approved a $9 billion package of spending cuts inspired by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency task force.

The legislation passed by a vote of 216-213.

The Senate earlier Thursday cleared the measure on a 51 to 48 vote and it now heads to President Donald Trump for his signature. In addition to cutting $1.1 billion in public broadcasting funds, the bill ends a swath of foreign aid projects and closes the US Institute of Peace.

White House Budget Director Russell Vought said he planned to send more such fast-track measures to Congress, taking advantage of a rescissions procedure requiring just 50 votes to pass the Senate rather than the usual 60 for annual spending bills.

He did not specify where the cutbacks would fall, but the administration has conducted mass layoffs in numerous departments including Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services and Education, resulting in unspent funds that Congress could formally claw back.

The House vote was delayed for hours as Republicans worked out a separate dispute over whether to vote on a resolution calling for the release by the Justice Department of files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who died in a federal jail in 2019. The issue has divided Republicans, with some urging the administration to release the full files and others sticking with the decision not to do so.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which finances the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio, will now lose all federal funding beginning Oct. 1. Large metropolitan stations will likely be able to survive on boosted sponsorships and donors, but smaller rural broadcasters are expected to close.

Republicans, who have spent decades trying to eliminate funding for PBS and NPR, said the organisations had strayed from their original mission by becoming biased against conservatives.

“If you want left-wing propaganda, watch MSNBC - but don’t make taxpayers fund it,” Senator Ted Cruz of Texas said on the Senate floor.

Defenders of public broadcasting, including Republican Senator Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska, argued that there were ways to improve the balance of national political coverage on NPR without “gutting” local programming by stations such those in her home state.

“This elimination of federal funding will decimate public media and put local stations at risk of going dark, cutting off service to communities that rely on them - many of which have no other access to locally controlled media,” lobbying group America’s Public Television Stations said in a statement.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins of Maine said in an interview that she would try to add back funding for local stations in the coming fiscal 2026 funding bills, but not for national NPR which she alleged has a liberal bias.

Democrats said that the passage of the first rescissions bill in decades threatens the annual bipartisan appropriations process. They argue making deals with Republicans only to see their priorities stripped in a subsequent bill makes deals nearly impossible.

“Russell Vought has now said the quiet part out loud. He says he even wants less bipartisanship in the Congress. He wants to destroy, destroy the way the Congress works, destroy the balance of power, upend our entire Constitution,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters.

The acrimony could result in a stalemate that leads to an Oct. 1 government shutdown, Democrats said.

Republicans say there is little to worry about regarding a shutdown. They note that Schumer saber-rattled but did not cause a shutdown in March, allowing just enough Democrats to back a stopgap extension of funds through Sept. 30.