Move On – February 11, 2025

Posted on February 11, 2025

Dear MoveOn member,

Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s assault on NPR and PBS has reached a fever pitch.

Trump and Musk were already working together to gut public media. Trump has long raged against NPR, calling it a “liberal disinformation machine”—and Musk has made defunding NPR and PBS a priority of his so-called “Department of Government Efficiency.”1,2

And now, MAGA conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene has joined the fight. She’s using her position in Congress to haul the leaders of NPR and PBS before her new “DOGE” subcommittee—where she’s expected to launch a smear campaign designed to manufacture an excuse for eliminating public broadcasting.3

This is a full-scale attack that goes further than ever before. Republicans have wanted to defund NPR and PBS for decades. When they tried, MoveOn members helped fight to save them and won. But this is the biggest threat yet. And if MAGA Republicans succeed, the results will be devastating:

  • Rural communities will lose their last remaining sources of independent journalism.
  • Kids could lose access to PBS Kids programs like “Sesame Street.”
  • The public could lose access to programming like “NOVA”—which tells the truth about climate change—and in-depth investigative reporting from “Frontline” and “PBS NewsHour.”4

If we don’t fight back, independent public media will be suffer a severe blow. Please start a monthly donation to help fund MoveOn’s emergency efforts to save NPR and PBS.

I’ll chip in $10 a month. 

I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.

Trump, Musk, and Greene are aiming to replace fact-based journalism with right-wing propaganda from sites like Breitbart and One America News—the kind of media that reports MAGA conspiracy theories as fact. We cannot let them succeed.

That’s why, over the past few days, MoveOn members have been mobilizing MoveOn members to fight back, including flooding Congress with calls, and working to expose the MAGA plan to silence independent media and replace it with right-wing conspiracy websites like Breitbart and X.

This war on NPR and PBS is moving at breakneck speed. While Greene gets ready to hold hearings, NPR, The New York Times, NBC News, and Politico have already been expelled from their dedicated office space at the Pentagon and replaced by the right-wing sites Breitbart News and One America News, which have repeatedly spread right-wing conspiracy theories and disinformation.5

Please start a monthly donation right now and help MoveOn stand up for independent journalism, for free speech, and for democracy—for as long as it takes.

I’ll chip in $10 a month. 

I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.

Thanks for all you do.

–Alexis, Allison, Amandah B., Olga, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. “Trump’s new FCC chief opens investigation into longtime conservative targets NPR, PBS,” USA Today, January 31, 2025
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/01/30/donald-trumps-fcc-chairman-investigation-npr-pbs/78058213007/

2. “FCC Probing NPR, PBS on Possible Ad Ban Violation,” Broadband Breakfast, January 31, 2025
https://broadbandbreakfast.com/trumps-fcc-chair-orders-npr-and-pbs-investigation-2/

3. “NPR and PBS first target in MTG’s DOGE crosshairs,” Politico, February 3, 2025
https://www.politico.com/live-updates/2025/02/03/congress/doge-musk-mtg-trump-00202103

4. “New Report Shows Significance of Public Radio in Rural America,” NPR, October 11, 2022
https://www.npr.org/about-npr/1128115763/new-report-shows-significance-of-public-radio-in-rural-america

5. “Trump Administration to Remove 4 Major News Outlets From Pentagon Office Space,” The New York Times, February 1, 2025
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/01/business/media/pentagon-press-corps.html

Want to support MoveOn’s work? Donald Trump and his MAGA allies expect us to give up. But we will not give them what they want. We will never stop working to defend our fundamental freedoms and protect our democracy. MoveOn has been leading the movement against right-wing extremism for 26 years, and we promise you that we will still be here every step of the way forward.

Will you donate to power MoveOn’s work to protect our freedoms and democracy under Trump’s administration?

Yes, I’ll chip in $5 a month.

No, I’m sorry, I can’t make a monthly donation.

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