Congressional Republicans Target Pbs, Npr Funding In Contentious Hearing

A House Republican pushing the Trump administration's government efficiency efforts called for dismantling and defunding the nation's public broadcasting system following a contentious hearing Wednesday featuring the heads of PBS and NPR.

"We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime," said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Coupled with President Donald Trump's declaration on Tuesday that he would "love to" see federal funding cut off, the nation's public broadcasting system is facing perhaps the biggest threat to its existence since it was first established in 1967. The broadcasters get roughly half a billion dollars in public money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Republicans have frequently grumbled that PBS and NPR news programming leans left, but efforts to cut or eliminate funding usually fade because legislators want to protect their local stations - 336 of them for PBS alone, with those in rural areas most heavily dependent on taxpayer money.

The hearings on behalf of the new administration are one of multiple front on which Trump and his allies are aggressively challenging and in some cases sanctioning the American media, which the president has been sharply critical of for years.