President Trump today voiced his support for defunding America's public broadcasters.

It comes a day before the heads of PBS and NPR testify in front of the House subcommittee

on delivering government efficiency, or Doge.

The hearing will examine alleged bias in public media with calls for federal funding cuts growing louder.

That funding, in part,

helps support the work of PBS News. We wanted to take a moment to explain exactly how public media is funded and, more broadly, how we got to this point. William Brangham is back with that.

Help me God. So help me God. Congratulations. In the week since President Trump took office, his allies have repeatedly taken aim at the

nation's public broadcasters, accusing them of liberal bias.

Pushing leftism.

Liberal indoctrination.

Propaganda from the left.

And that's why we need to.

Elon Musk has also called for defunding, PBS, and NPR.

Now, allegations of bias and threats to public media are about as old as the industry itself,

so it's important to understand the history.

Remington Electric Shaver.

For a lot of the 1900s, broadcasting in the U.S. was dominated by commercial networks.

They sold on-air ads and used that revenue to pay for programming,

but some wanted an alternative.

So in the 1960s, the Carnegie Corporation launched a study of non-commercial TV in the U.S.

and how to bring it to more Americans.

A system that, in their view, could focus more on educational programming, making sure that

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