At last, Trump takes aim at the public broadcasting monopoly

History is made

ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE On Thursday, while most Americans slept, a decisive blow was struck in a battle long overdue. President Donald Trump, with the swift stroke of his pen, aimed the lance of executive power at the heart of America’s taxpayer-funded media establishment.

While claiming NPR and PBS produce “biased and partisan news coverage,” Trump’s executive order that defunded them represented not merely a budget decision, but a declaration of independence from a half-century of liberal monopoly over the public airwaves—signals that belong to the American people.

Moreover, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was told to “cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and … decline to provide future funding” to NPR and PBS. The mere existence of CPB—a publicly funded non-profit—presents a conflict of interest.

Since Congress funds CPB to the tune of half a billion dollars per year, its status as a “private” corporation, while true, is a bit rich, particular…