WASHINGTON (March 6, 2025) – WASHINGTON – Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) explained why taxpayer-funded news services, including National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), have declining audiences. Kennedy argued that the federal government should stop funding these programs through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) in a speech on the Senate floor.
Key excerpts of the speech are below:
“The audience for public radio and public television is declining. Let me say that again. The audience for public radio and public television, which your tax dollars pay for, is declining.
“Why is that? There are a lot of reasons for it, but I will tell you one. People used to tune into PBS and NPR and Corporation for Public bias—Public Broadcasting, Freudian slip there—because those stations played it right straight down the middle, but they don’t anymore. They are very, very biased in their reporting. We all know that. I mean, all you have to do is listen to them.”
. . .
“I support the First Amendment, but they don’t have an inalienable right to report these things using opinion journalism that no fair-minded American can construe as anything but representing one point of view with your tax dollars.
“I am going to try to stop subsidizing media—not just PBS and not just NPR—but any form of media that somehow is getting federal taxpayer dollars. It is just not right. It is not fair. I have a bill to do that. . . . I think President Trump and Mr. [Elon] Musk are going to pursue it on their own, and I think that is a very good thing.”
Watch Kennedy’s full speech here.
