AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump's latest target in his battle against mainstream news outlets is public broadcasting. Late last night, he issued an executive order to pull federal funds from both NPR and PBS today. The networks vowed to fight back. Here with more is NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, who joins us now. Hi, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: OK, so before we begin, let's just note, as we always do, no NPR executive has been involved in our coverage of this network, right?
FOLKENFLIK: Right, and I'm covering this. I'm not speaking for the institution here.
CHANG: Exactly. OK, so tell us why President Trump says he wants to end federal funding of NPR and PBS.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, you know, in his executive order, he accused NPR and PBS of ideological bias. In social media postings, he's gone even further. He's called NPR and PBS the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country. But it's impossible to look at this and not see it fitting in neatly to this broader assault, essentially, on the news media writ large through actions by his regulators to investigate all the major broadcasters except that owned by Rupert Murdoch, to do lawsuits privately as an individual citizen, really try to upend credibility, legal standing, the finances, you name it.
CHANG: OK. And in this executive order, just spell out exactly what Trump is ordering with regard to NPR and PBS here.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, he's decreeing - or saying, anyway, that he's decreeing - that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting can't send any money to NPR and PBS, but more that the stations that really receive the lion's share of funding from the federal taxpayer - about $535 million a year - they can't send any money back to us - to NPR and PBS, either.
You know, I want to be clear, it's not at all certain that Trump has the authority, even as president of the United States, to do this. This was an institution - this Corporation for Public Broadcasting - set up by Congress decades ago with the intention that it be insulated from pressure from government officials and government employees. It's right there in federal statute. And in fact, the president, although he gets to appoint the members of the board of the CPB - there's no mechanism for him to remove them, which he also tried to do earlier this week.
It appears as though he's trying to really hit NPR and the stations to try to squeeze them, to make sure that NPR and PBS don't have standing to receive money, to be viewed as credible. But, you know, depending on how this works, it could have a huge impact also on the local stations themselves. They would have hours to fill. Their two biggest expenses are paying for local reporters and staff and paying for programming from NPR itself.
CHANG: Right. OK, well, what are the networks and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting saying in response as of now?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, they have some pretty tart words for this. PBS's chief executive and president Paula Kerger called it blatantly unlawful. PBS, I might add, receives about 15% of its revenues each year directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting itself seems to have essentially ignored this. It doesn't seem to be granting it the standing as being legitimate, and it's already suing the president and the White House over his efforts to remove three of their board members.
NPR has said that this would jeopardize the national airing of shows like Morning Edition and Tiny Desk Radio and a whole host of others, people here on this station and others around the country, and says that NPR is committed to fighting bias as best it can. In fact, it engaged in a major new initiative funded by the CPB to start doing that just last year.
CHANG: That is NPR's David Folkenflik. Thank you, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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