WASHINGTON (April 9, 2025) – WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) argued that the federal government should stop subsidizing public media programming in Louisiana and elsewhere throughout the country in a speech on the U.S. Senate floor.
Key excerpts of the speech are below:
“Now, look, you don’t have to be a Latin scholar to see that these articles are biased—every single one of them—at the federal level and at the state and local level in Louisiana. And you know what, that’s the right of these state and local television stations. They have the right to say this stuff, but they don’t have the right to say it with your money.”
. . .
“These folks have the right to publish that, but they do not have the right to publish it with taxpayer money—$500 million a year. And I think you know how I feel. We know how President Trump feels, but I hope the U.S. Congress, in our reconciliation package, abolishes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and no longer gives them or any media organization in this country a single solitary dime of taxpayer money.
“That’s not the role of the federal government, and—given these kinds of articles—to do so incites the anger of at least half of our country, and that is not right.”
Watch Kennedy’s speech here.
