Congress

Frustration and fear ripple through NPR and PBS affiliates after Congress approves clawbacks

Published

1 year ago

July 21, 2025

Staffers at local NPR and PBS stations around the country were devastated by the news that Congress approved $1.1 billion in federal funding cuts to public media last week, a move that could jeopardize the futures of dozens of stations.

Small, as well as rural, public media stations that heavily rely on federal funding to operate are now bracing for possible staff cuts after Congress approved a package on Thursday that will claw back Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding.

Some stations say they’re being punished over a fight between President Donald Trump and the national public broadcasting organizations that have little relationship to the service smaller outlets offer their communities.

“I think [lawmakers’] decisions were not informed,” said Don Dunlap, president and general manager of KEDT-TV/FM, a public radio and TV station in Corpus Christi, Texas. “We’re there to help people. There are 10 public TV stations in Texas, and we’re thinking probably six of them will close down within a year.”

In April, Trump asked Congress to roll back funding for NPR and PBS, which he has long accused of bias against him and other Republicans — a claim both outlets have denied. The public media cuts are one aspect of the Trump administration’s aggressive campaign against media outlets it deems as partisan. Trump has taken legal action against several news organizations, including CBS, ABC, The Wall Street Journal and other outlets over unfavorable coverage.

Several station heads told Blue Light News they’ve been preparing for potential cuts since the Trump administration first floated the idea earlier this year. But in the wake of the bill’s passage, they’ve had to put those plans into action.

“We’re disappointed, but not surprised, and we’ve been planning for this scenario for a while,” said Judy Diaz, head of Delmarva Public Media, a group of three NPR stations that serve Maryland’s Delmarva Peninsula. “But yeah, it’s a hit.”

For hundreds of stations, federal money makes up a significant portion of their total funding. According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, about 45 percent of all public media stations that received their grants are in rural areas, and nearly half of those rely on CPB for 25 percent or more of their annual budget.

Without federal funding, those stations may be forced into layoffs and programming cuts, if they’re able to survive at all.

According to data obtained by POLITICO, 34 public radio and TV stations receive at least 50 percent of their funding from federal grants. Twelve of those stations are in Alaska.

“We can’t fundraise our way out of this. We have to make other decisions,” said Mollie Kabler, executive director of CoastAlaska, which oversees six public radio stations in southern Alaska. “We have to consider ‘what services are we going to give up? What people are we going to let go of? And how can we find a way to collaborate and retain service for Alaskans?’”

KRZA-FM, a public radio station based in Alamosa, Colorado, that broadcasts across southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, relies on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for 50 percent of its yearly budget. Besides general manager Gerald Rodriguez, the station has one other full-time employee, two part-time workers and a handful of volunteers.

“It’s gonna be a huge cut for us,” Rodriguez said. “It’s gonna affect us quite a bit, to the point where it could be, like a one-man show at some point where I’m doing everything by myself.”

Public media stations have received CPB grants through the end of the current fiscal year, which ends in September. Many stations are calculating how long they’ll be able to survive once their federal grant funds dry up. For some, it may only be a matter of months.

“The station has built up a war chest that should get us through the next few months,” said Mark Johnson, general manager of KSRQ-FM in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. “Right now, we are making a push on-air and through social media for listener contributions to help us cover the cost of powering our transmitter through December.”

Public media staffers from local affiliates to the national networks have been lobbying Republicans in Congress for weeks in hopes of staving off the cuts. In the end, only four Republicans in both chambers voted against the final version of the package, which also included cuts to foreign aid: Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Reps. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).

Representatives for Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

An Office of Management and Budget spokesperson refuted claims that local NPR and PBS affiliates had remained nonpartisan, saying in a statement they had “politicized their own coverage by relying on syndicated programming from their national org.”

“Democratic paper-pushers masquerading as reporters don’t deserve taxpayer subsidies, and NPR and PBS will have to learn to survive on their own,” said White House principal deputy press secretary Harrison Fields. “Unfortunately for them, their only lifeline was taxpayer dollars, and that ended when President Trump was sworn in.”

Scott Smith, general manager of Alleghany Public Radio which broadcasts to three counties on either side of the border of Virginia and West Virginia, said he reached out to Republican lawmakers from both states to try to preserve the 60 percent of his funding that comes from federal grants. Now, he blames Congress for targeting local stations to spite the national NPR and PBS networks.

“They do know that what they were doing was going to hurt us more than it’s going to hurt NPR and PBS as a whole. Yet it was still done,” Smith said. “So what conclusion does that bring you to, without any other data to the contrary, that this is political and personal in nature.”

Kabler, who oversees the stations in Alaska, said she meets with Murkowski “a couple times per year.” The senator attempted to introduce an amendment to the Senate bill that would protect funding for local public broadcasting while stripping it from NPR’s and PBS’ national operations, citing employees at KUCB — one of Kabler’s stations — who she said earlier that afternoon had coordinated with local public officials to warn the community of an impending tsunami.

The amendment failed.

The public broadcasting audience in Alaska is “mostly Republicans,” Kabler said. “But our services are not about partisan politics, and the discussion of what people believe about PBS and NPR on the national level, that’s not what we do. We’re about local news and information.”

Some public media staffers are hoping to take advantage of the grassroots networks used to rally support against the federal cuts to organize political opposition to Republicans who backed the bill. Kurt Mische, president of the PBS station based in Reno, Nevada, said he hopes the impact of gutting local NPR and PBS stations will be a motivating issue for voters in the 2026 midterms.

“I hope that everyone who believes in and supports the mission and vision and values of public broadcasting will keep this in mind when the next congressional election comes up,” Mische said. “And we will help them connect the dots.”

Congress

Trump apparently shares Tom Cotton’s phone number in push to make Daylight Saving Time permanent

Published

1 day ago

October 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump appeared to share Sen. Tom Cotton’s phone number in a Saturday morning social media post imploring the Arkansas Republican to get behind a bill to make Daylight Saving Time permanent.

“Almost everybody wants “The Sunshine Protection Act” to pass, except for Tom Cotton,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “To the Great People of Arkansas, please let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

The president has spent months personally pushing Senate Republicans to end the practice that sees Americans change their clocks twice a year, cementing more sunlight hours in the evening for all twelve months of the calendar. Cotton, whom Trump called “a friend of mine” in the Saturday post, has long argued that making daylight saving time permanent would leave children, farmers and other early risers in the dark for hours on winter mornings.

One of Trump’s key selling points on Saturday: the PGA tour.

“The PGA TOUR, as an example, needs more Daylight in the afternoon in order to finish their Tournaments,” he said, attaching a letter from PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp endorsing the bill. ”Likewise, regular Golfers, Tennis Players, Hunters and, perhaps most importantly, Farmers who want more Daylight to play or work.

A Blue Light News call to the cellphone number went to voicemail. A spokesperson for Cotton did not respond to a request for comment. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The current version of the bill was introduced in the House in January 2025 by Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), with Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) leading the Senate version. The legislation would make daylight saving time permanent across most of the country, ending the twice-yearly clock changes. The legislation has been stalled in the Senate since July.

The president encouraged supporters of the bill, dubbed the “The Sunshine Protection Act,” to call Cotton to “let your Senator know it would be a GREAT Bipartisan WIN for the United States Senate, and for America, itself.”

During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, he publicly gave out the personal cellphone number of then-rival Sen. Lindsey Graham after the South Carolina Republican criticized him. Trump, who came to count on Graham as a reliable Senate ally after he won the presidency, revisited the moment during Graham’s funeral in July, acknowledging that sharing the number was something he “shouldn’t have done.”

Kelsey Brugger contributed to this report.

Congress

Sanders to rally for Troy Jackson in Maine

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Sen. Bernie Sanders will hit the road for Troy Jackson in Maine starting Oct. 10, the first time the progressive leader will stump for the candidate this cycle.

The Vermont independent plans to hold three rallies with Jackson, according to an itinerary shared first with Blue Light News: first in Bangor on Oct. 10th followed by Lewiston and Biddeford on Oct. 11.

The Maine swing will kick off Sanders’ travel for the final stretch of the midterms, covering ground throughout October for House and Senate candidates, POLITICO reported.

“Bernie and Troy know that working people built this country and deserve a government that fights for them,” Jackson spokesperson Dan Gottlieb told Blue Light News. “Susan Collins has had nearly 30 years to deliver, and working Mainers are still getting squeezed while she serves the billionaires and corporate interests who bankroll her campaigns. Mainers don’t need another six years of excuses.”

Sanders campaigned ahead of major wins for progressives in the primary season, speaking at more than 60 rallies since last year’s Fight the Oligarchy tour and endorsing more than 90 candidates up and down the ballot.

He’s also opening his substantial $23 million campaign war chest, POLITICO reported, and contributing hundreds of thousands of dollars toMinnesota Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan’s Senate campaign and others including Angie Nixon in Florida and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison,

Sanders will return to Maine after initially backing Graham Platner’s campaign for Senate. Allegations reported by POLITICO ultimately led him to call on the Democratic nominee to drop out of the race.

Sanders had not formally endorsed Jackson since he clinched the nomination from Platner, though he previously backed Jackson’s initial run for governor.

Congress

Hill: Trump’s ‘lack of favorability’ creating challenging politics

Published

2 days ago

October 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Financial Services Chair French Hill said he has “no concerns” about winning back his Arkansas seat in the upcoming midterm elections, but the six-term House member acknowledged the political headwinds for his party.

“I consider the atmosphere a very tough political environment right now because of President [Donald] Trump’s lack of favorability at the top, and you know people are concerned about, as I say, what it’s like to live under an inflated economy the last four years,” Hill said in an interview.

Hill is in a solidly red district, according to the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, and said he is up against a “weaker candidate this time than I’ve had in past races.” Polling in the district, however, has shown a tighter race. The two polls done this year placed Democratic challenger Chris Jones ahead of Hill by a few percentage points. Any perceived polling victory for Jones is still well within the margin of error, and one of the polls had a Democratic sponsor.

Stephannie Lane Baker, a spokesperson for Jones, said that “of all the Republicans in Congress, the chairman of the Financial Services Committee doesn’t get to dodge responsibility for this economy. He’s in trouble, and he knows it.”

Additionally, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker’s PAC, Ready for the Fight, committed more than $1 million in television ads through the next five weeks for Jones’ race in Arkansas’s 2nd District, Jordan Abudayyeh, a spokesperson for the PAC confirmed. Overall Democratic spending on advertising for the race was just over $1 million, primarily made up by contributions from the Ready for the Fight PAC, with Republicans spending almost $2.7 million on ad buys, according to AdImpact, an advertising tracking service.

Hill said he has addressed affordability concerns “head on” this Congress.

“My work on housing, my work on the Price Stability Act, my work to try to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse, and drop the federal budget deficit as a percentage of GDP,” Hill said. “All these things can contribute to a more affordable environment for people. So I’ve tried to make that a forefront of my campaign this year.”

Hill was a key architect of the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act, a bipartisan housing affordability bill that became law in July. The Price Stability Act, which is unlikely to become law this year, would narrow the Federal Reserve’s current dual mandate of pursuing maximum employment and price stability to focus exclusively on containing inflation.