The Senate votes to advance the bill to cancel the financing of public media

The Senate voted Tuesday evening to advance a package that would go back $ 1.1 billion in funding in PBS, NPR and public media that had already been allocated over the next two years.

Vice-President JD Vance had to break up equality, 51-50, to move the breaking down to the ground. Three Republicans-Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY)-joined all the Democrats and independent against him.

A final vote is expected in the coming days.

The zero cuts would manage to the public distribution company, the entity that the Congress implemented almost 60 years ago to distribute subsidies to public media.

Trump’s White House looked for the package of resilists, which also retreats billions of dollars in funding for foreign and health aid programs. The invoice package calls for recovering more than $ 9 billion in total funding.

The Republicans have long sought to eliminate funding from public media, but Trump and his allies targeted the programming for an alleged liberal bias.

On the Senate floor, Murkowski said that if the Republicans do not like a left -wing bias at NPR, “we can resolve ourselves.

But another legislator who was on the fence, Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD), said that he had supported the package after the Trump administration said that she would find money to “continue the subsidies at tribal radio stations without interruption”.

Trump threatened to suspend his support or approval for any legislator who voted against the packet of cups.

Congress has until Friday to approve the package, or funds will remain in the budget as is. The room approved the package during a 214-212 vote last month.

“In our opinion, in our opinion, improper use of taxpayers’ dollars,” said Chamber Mike Johnson on Tuesday. “These are biased relationships, they are not objective. They claim to be, they have had it for a long time. And people don’t need to finance this. ” He also cited change in the media landscape “with so many different areas for information”.

The leader of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), said in a speech on the floor: “Tens of millions of Americans are counting on public broadcasting for weather alerts, local news, the city hall goalkeeper, educational programs, and much more. Difference between life and death.

Schumer said cuts were made “under the false appearance of waste elimination. But anyone can see that this is not true, it’s just to pay their taxes for billionaires. ”