Paula Kerger, President and CEO at PBS, speaks at the executive session during the PBS Winter 2020 TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington, Pasadena, Jan. 10, 2020, in Pasadena, Calif. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)2025-05-02T15:08:56Z The head of PBS said Friday that President Donald Trumps executive order aiming to slash public subsidies to PBS and NPR was blatantly unlawful. Public Broadcasting Service CEO Paula Kerger said the Republican presidents order threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years.We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans, Kerger said.Trump signed the order late Thursday, alleging bias in the broadcasters reporting.The order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other federal agencies to cease Federal funding for PBS and National Public Radio and further requires that they work to root out indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations. The White House, in a social media posting announcing the signing, said the outlets receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as news. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funnels public funding to the two services, said that it is not a federal executive agency subject to Trumps orders. The president earlier this week said he was firing three of the five remaining CPB board members threatening its ability to do any work and was immediately sued by the CPB to stop it. The vast majority of public money for the services goes directly to its hundreds of local stations, which operate on a combination of government funding, donations and philanthropic grants. Stations in smaller markets are particularly dependent on the public money and most threatened by the cuts of the sort Trump is proposing. Public broadcasting has been threatened frequently by Republican leaders in the past, but the local ties have largely enabled them to escape cutbacks legislators dont want to be seen as responsible for shutting down stations in their districts. But the current threat is seen as the most serious in the systems history. Its also the latest move by Trump and his administration to utilize federal powers to control or hamstring institutions whose actions or viewpoints he disagrees with.Since taking office in January for a second term, Trump has ousted leaders, placed staff on administrative leave and cut off hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to artists, libraries, museums, theaters and others, through takeovers of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Trump has also pushed to withhold federal research and education funds from universities and punish law firms unless they agree to eliminate diversity programs and other measures he has found objectionable.Just two weeks ago, the White House said it would be asking Congress to rescind funding for the CPB as part of a $9.1 billion package of cuts. That package, however, which budget director Russell Vought said would likely be the first of several, has not yet been sent to Capitol Hill.The move against PBS and NPR comes as Trumps administration has been working to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which were designed to model independent news gathering globally in societies that restrict the press. Those efforts have faced pushback from federal courts, which have ruled in some cases that the Trump administration may have overstepped its authority in holding back funds appropriated to the outlets by Congress.___AP Congressional Correspondent Lisa Mascaro contributed to this report. DAVID BAUDER Bauder is the APs national media writer, covering the intersection of news, politics and entertainment. He is based in New York. twitter mailto