Last week, President Donald Trump grounded Big Bird. He took Wishbone out for a “long walk in the woods.” He cut the strings on all the smooth jazz you could find by dialing your car’s FM radio to NPR.
And yes, this is a good thing. Let me explain.
Two weeks ago, congressional Republicans passed a piece of legislation known as a “rescissions package,” a formal request from the President to Congress to cancel previously approved spending, effectively eliminating funds allocated to specific programs or projects. This process is governed by the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), which allows the President to propose rescissions and requires Congress to act within a specific timeframe.
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This bill, H.R. 4, the Rescissions Act of 2025, was historic. It was the first time in over two decades that a rescissions package, requested by the president, was signed into law.
Once again, where other Republican administrations have talked the talk on cutting waste, fraud, and abuse, Trump is walking the walk. According to CBS, this bill “targets roughly $8 billion for foreign assistance programs, including the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID. The package also includes about $1 billion in funding cuts for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supports public radio and television stations, including NPR and PBS.”
That’s right, the federal subsidies spigot providing taxpayer funding for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) to supplement their budget was finally shut off. This is a monumental victory for fiscal sanity and moral clarity, freeing American taxpayers from bankrolling a propaganda machine disguised as educational enlightenment. No longer will hardworking, blue-collar folks foot the bill for content that mocks their values and undermines the very values on which our Republic was founded.
While I don’t know the last time you turned on PBS or listened to NPR, the sad truth is that these once-vaunted institutions of American broadcasting had long turned their backs on wholesome, helpful educational content, choosing instead to become outlets of the most absurd, leftist propaganda imaginable. You know, like features on “A Brief History Of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways.” Moving stuff.
To understand the magnitude of this triumph, we must rewind to the origins of this unholy alliance between government and media. Back in 1967, under President Lyndon Johnson, Congress established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) through the Public Broadcasting Act, ostensibly to foster “non-commercial” educational programming in a nation starved for intellectual enrichment. PBS followed in 1969, and NPR in 1970, both receiving support from the federal government through CPB grants.
What started as a noble-sounding venture — promoting arts, sciences, and civics — quickly ballooned into a taxpayer-funded behemoth. According to recent estimates, federal dollars accounted for approximately 1 to 2% of NPR’s direct budget and roughly 15% of PBS’s aggregate budget. For local stations, the average was 8 to 10% for radio and similar for TV. That’s hundreds of millions annually, folks — including the $485 million in the last fiscal year alone funneled through CPB to keep the lights on for “Sesame Street” socialists and “All Things Considered” ideologues.
And it’s not like conservatives woke up one random morning with a grudge; the rot set in early and festered over decades. As far back as the Reagan era, whispers of liberal bias echoed in the halls of power, but it was during the George W. Bush years that the mask slipped further, with accusations of slanted coverage on everything from Iraq to climate hysteria. By the Obama administration, the bias had become blatant, and under Trump 1.0, it exploded into full-blown insanity. PBS and NPR became mouthpieces for the leftist agenda, peddling pro-LBGT indoctrination, transgender fairy tales, anti-American revisionism, and a subtle anti-white narrative that paints traditional values as oppressive relics.
By 2025, PBS and NPR were nothing more than a non-stop slop bucket of Cultural Marxism, overflowing into your living room or front seat, where “diversity” meant erasing biblical norms and “inclusion” excludes anyone clinging to the Cross, the Constitution, and common sense.
Take, for instance, PBS’s children’s lineup — shows like Arthur featuring same-sex weddings or Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood pushing “anti-racist” indoctrination, all while taxpayer dollars fund the grooming. NPR’s no better, with endless segments on “racial injustice” over urban crime waves, fawning interviews with trans activists, and coverage that frames border security as xenophobia while ignoring the invasion’s chaos. They’ve aired puff pieces on drag queen story hours, downplayed Antifa riots as “mostly peaceful,” and amplified voices calling America a “systemically racist” empire built on stolen land. It’s ludicrous anti-white, anti-Christian drivel masquerading as journalism, where normal Americans are villains and every minority grievance is gospel.
Enter Katherine Maher, NPR’s current CEO, whose tenure has been nothing short of a symphony performance of elite arrogance. This former Wikimedia boss testified before Congress in March 2025, dodging questions like a greased pig at a county fair. Republicans grilled her on bias, and what did she offer in response? Platitudes about “diversity” while her past statements haunted the room.
Maher once mused that “our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that’s getting in the way of finding common ground,” implying that objective truth is a barrier to her progressive utopia. She’s on record viewing the First Amendment as a pesky obstacle to combating “misinformation” — code for censoring conservative voices. In old tweets, she equated truth-seeking with “white male Westernized constructs,” essentially calling biblical absolutes a tool of oppression.
Her congressional performance? A masterclass in deflection, invoking the First Amendment 10 times to shield NPR’s slant, all while suing over Trump’s earlier executive orders that attempted to defund it. Hypocrisy thy name is Maher: freedom of speech for thee, but not for me.
For years, Republicans talked a big game about defunding this beast — Reagan threatened, Gingrich promised, even Romney mumbled about putting Big Bird on the chopping block. But they were all hat, no cattle. But Trump didn’t just tweet about it; he actually did it. Leveraging his influence over the GOP and guided by his steady budget guru at the Office of Management and Budget, Russ Vought, he pushed the rescissions package through Congress.
To be clear, it’s not like PBS has vanished from your TV or that NPR has gone radio silent. If you want to tune in for some more lessons on why your 3-year-old might be a racist because they like the color blue, have at it. Just know that their programming is only made possible by viewers like you, not taxpayers like me.
As a Christian, it’s right to rejoice in these cost-saving and sanity-seeking cuts. This defunding is a divine mercy, aligning with Scripture’s call to separate from the world’s corrupting influences. By yanking these subsidies, we’re halting the flow of taxpayer tithes to idols of secularism and moral relativism. It’s a win for the Kingdom, protecting families from state-sponsored apostasy and redirecting resources to genuine good.
Trump finally pulled the plug on the radical-left’s golden calf, and the silence is golden.
Originally published at the Standing for Freedom Center.
William Wolfe is a visiting fellow with the Center for Renewing America. He served as a senior official in the Trump administration, both as a deputy assistant secretary of defense at the Pentagon and a director of legislative affairs at the State Department. Prior to his service in the administration, Wolfe worked for Heritage Action for America, and as a congressional staffer for three different members of Congress, including the former Rep. Dave Brat. He has a B.A. in history from Covenant College, and is finishing his Masters of Divinity at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.
Follow William on Twitter at @William_E_Wolfe
