PBS, NPR Set to Lose Federal Funding as Senate Passes DOGE Cuts

Republicans are set to succeed in their decades-long quest to end federal funding for public broadcasting after the Senate passed a $9 billion package of cuts derived from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort.

The Senate voted 51 to 48 to approve the cuts to the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and a swath of foreign aid. Two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowksi of Alaska — voted no.

The result was a major victory for the White House and demonstrates that the DOGE cost-cutting effort is alive even after Musk and Trump had a public falling out, with the billionaire tech entrepreneur vowing to start his own political party.

The bill now heads to the House, which plans to send it to President Donald Trump’s desk before a Friday deadline.

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It was the first time in decades that the Senate passed a partisan discretionary spending cuts package, bypassing the usual bipartisan appropriations process. It may augur a new era of federal agency downsizing, with Congress giving legal certainty to Trump’s cuts.

The White House now plans to send more such packages to Congress to formalize cuts identified by DOGE. Rescission packages can pass the Senate with just 50 votes instead of the usual 60 as long as they are acted upon within 45 days.

White House Budget Director Russell Vought declined to say which agencies would be targeted in the next package. He has put forward a theory that any rescissions proposals made after August 15 would result in an automatic cancellation of funds if Congress fails to act before Sept. 30. Such “pocket rescissions” would likely be challenged in court.

PBS, NPR Cuts

The measure would eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, entities that have long been targeted by conservatives for alleged liberal bias.

“They have betrayed the trust of the American people,” Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri told reporters. “They have been ideologically captured by the left.”

The public media outlets receive a small portion of their funding from federal sources in addition to dollars from sponsors and individual donors. The networks have said that smaller stations, which produce local-oriented programming, could close as a result of the cut.

Holdout Republicans secured a commitment for a one-time $10 million infusion to tribal broadcasting stations ahead of the vote.

The package would also cancel funding for foreign aid grants in the US Agency for International Development’s budget as well as for smaller agencies targeted for closure by Trump like the US Institute of Peace.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the foreign aid cuts would harm starving children abroad and cede the world stage to China, which has been building goodwill abroad.

“It’s simple incompetence and cruelty based on extreme ideology,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.

Democrats have warned that Republicans are destroying the bipartisan annual spending bill process by using partisan budget reconciliation to add funds to agencies they favor, like the Pentagon, while using rescissions to cut Democratic priorities. Schumer has said the moves make getting a deal to prevent an Oct. 1 shutdown difficult.

Nearly all Senate Republicans united behind the Trump administration proposal to advance the bill after a deal to spare global AIDS health funding from $400 million in cuts.

Final passage of the bill came after a lengthy series of amendments where Republicans stuck together to prevent Democrats from stopping specific cuts, such as to public broadcasting.

--With assistance from Bill Faries.

To contact the reporters on this story:
Ken Tran in Arlington at ktran172@bloomberg.net;
Erik Wasson in Washington at ewasson@bloomberg.net;
Jack Fitzpatrick in Washington, D.C. at jfitzpatri53@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Megan Scully at mscully32@bloomberg.net

Magan Crane, Laura Davison

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