This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

Thanks to President Donald Trump's big budget bill and Republicans in Congress,

funding has been canceled for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

That's only going to bother pointy-headed liberals, right? Well, no, it also cuts funding to radio stations in rural and remote areas, ones that rely on those stations for

crucial updates and other information. Speaking to the New York Times, GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski,

who opposed the bill,

sounded absolutely shocked that Trump and Republicans would harm their own voters so cavalierly.

Yet this has been the story on one front after another, tariffs, health care, the safety net,

and even issues like green energy and immigration.

Will there ever come a point where

Democrats can capitalize on this betrayal? Linley Thorne is a Democratic operative who organizes

for the party deep in rural areas as the political director of rural groundgame.org. So we invited

her on to talk about all this. Thanks for coming on, Lindley.

Thanks for having me, Greg. So the Times reports that due to Trump's cuts, as many as 245 public

broadcasting outlets in rural areas are at risk of closing. In fact, more than half of the

Corporation for Public Broadcasting's budget went to local stations per the times.

Many of these stations are now cutting back drastically.

These are lifelines for people in these areas, right?

In some cases, the only source of local information?

Very often that is true.

It's a real gut punch.

...