DOGE Tries to Get Into Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Less than a day after Donald Trump tried to fire the majority of the board members for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” tried to insert some of its people into the organization but CPB refused.

DOGE is a subset of a White House IT team, not a government department.

On 28 April 2025, Trump tried to fire three of the five members of the CPB board, which would leave it without a quorum and unable to conduct any business.

On 29 April, CPB filed a lawsuit against that attempt on the grounds and federal law and a Supreme Court ruling establish that the President can appoint members to the CPB board in consultation with Senate leaders of both parties, but the President does not have the power to remove members of the CPB board. The law establishing CPB says it “will not be an agency or establishment of the United States Government” and is designed to “afford the maximum protection from extraneous interference and control.” The statute explicitly prohibits “any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over public telecommunications, or over the Corporation or any of its grantees or contractors.”

That same day, DOGE member Nate Cavanaugh who is embedded in the General Services Administration sent email to the two board members Trump did not attempt to fire. He asked for a meeting before the first court hearing in the case CPB filed. He wrote, “I would like to learn more about the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and discuss getting a DOGE team assigned to the organization.”

On 30 April, CPB Executive Vice President and General Counsel Evan Slavitt first pointed out that Cavanaugh used abnormal email addresses normally reserved for expense reimbursement matters and omitted the Vice-Chair, a board member Trump was trying to remove. Slavitt schooled Cavanaugh about where he should send any further emails.

Slavitt’s response went on to include:

CPB is a private entity incorporated under the laws of the District of Columbia. While its funding largely comes from Congress, it is not an agency or department of the federal government. It certainly is not part of the executive branch.

Slavitt quoted the pertinent portion of the statute that created CPB. Then he said:

Accordingly, neither DOGE, the GSA, nor any other component of the executive branch has any role supervising or having any activity relating to CPB.

On 1 May, Trump signed an executive order attempting to force CPB to cut off its funding to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. Like his firings of board members and DOGE’s attempt to insert itself, this flies in the face of the Congressional statute which created CPB. For the current fiscal year, Congressionally appropriated funding for CPB is $535 million to CPB.

The executive order also commands federal agencies to cut off any direct or indirect funding they provide to NPR or PBS. The Department of Education cut off its Ready to Learn grant for educational television programming at PBS.

This timeline of the coordinated attack on CPB by Trump and Musk came to light in a court hearing 9 May. The next hearing in the case is set for 14 May.

Click here for more details.

Click here to read the executive order.