As we've been reporting, the Trump administration wants to cut the federal funds that support public media in the U.S.,

which would impact NPR and PBS and the roughly 1,500 local public media stations across the country.

It would, of course, also affect national programs like the News Hour.

The Trump administration has now drafted a memo that could make those cuts happen

soon. William Brangham's been following all of this and joins me now. So, William, the administration

is asking Congress to cut funds to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That's a congressionally created

entity through which NPR and PBS get federal funding. What are they asking Congress to do

here? They're asking Congress to use a process known as rescission, which allows Congress to claw back

money that has already been appropriated. And just to back up for a second, CPB is funded on this

two-year cycle, and that's by design.

Originally, that was to insulate CPB from any political interference.

So CPB gets about $500, a little more than $500 million a year.

That costs about $1.50 per year per American.

And the administration wants that two-year chunk, which is about a

billion dollars, immediately cut. So that's the money that would have been appropriated for the next

two fiscal years starting in this fall. So what is the process here? How could this unfold?

This is part of a series of rescission, so that the White House is asking for this money to be cut as well as money cut from USAID and the U.S. Institute for Peace.

Procedurally, this request will go to Congress when they get back from recess at the end of the month.

That starts a 45-day period where the House and the Senate can look at this request.

They can change it, approve it, deny it.

One thing to note, in the Senate, the normal filibuster rules would not apply.

So to pass it, they would only need 51 votes.

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