(Left) U.S. Senator Jim Banks (R-IN); (Right) National Public Radio headquarters in Washington, D.C.
(Photos via U.S. Senate, Wikimedia Commons)
Republican U.S. Senator Jim Banks of Indiana introduced a bill Wednesday that would remove all federal funding from National Public Radio.
The Defund NPR Act would delete any mention of “National Public Radio” from the federal Communications Act, which created entities like the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The bill says no “federal funds may, directly or indirectly” are allowed to be used by a public broadcast station.
Banks wrote a nearly identical bill in the House last year. Banks is a strong supporter of President Donald Trump, and was elected to the Senate in the 2024 general election.
More than 1,000 NPR member stations throughout the country are funded in part through money held in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB says it distributes “more than 70 percent of its funding to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations.”
The bill is co-signed in the U.S. House of Representative by Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.), who said in a press release, “For too long, NPR cherry-picked its coverage in favor of its majority Democrat listeners.” She has also released a list of NPR’s “Top 10 Transgressions.”
WFIU News contacted Banks’ press secretary to an interview but did not receive a response before publication of this story.
“Taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to fund NPR’s liberal propaganda,” Banks said in his press release. “If NPR can’t stay afloat without government funding, that tells you all you need to know about the quality of their news.”
The Senator has had a rocky relationship with NPR. He spoke with All Things Considered’s Michel Martin in 2019 on a whistleblower complaint and inquiries to impeach Donald Trump during his first presidency. At the time, Banks was in the House of Representatives, which had launched the formal impeachment inquiry on Trump.
In the interview, Martin and Banks disagree on the details of the complaint. NPR wrote an editor’s opinion following the interview, and Banks followed up with a letter to NPR’s CEO.
On Jan. 29, Brandon Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, ordered an investigation into NPR and PBS for potential violations of federal regulations for announcing its financial partners on air.
Earlier this month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) accused NPR and PBS of “systemically biased content.”
EDITOR'S NOTE: WFIU is a member station of NPR. WFIU continues to maintain its editorial independence.
