Trump’s War on “Woke” Finally Hits NPR and PBS

President Trump on Thursday signed an executive order that ends public government funding of NPR and PBS in yet another culturally polarized attack on anything deemed “woke.”

“Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” the executive order reads. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”

This order is more symbolic than anything, as both NPR and PBS receive most of their funding from independent sponsors. And yet the order would limit funding to rural areas in particular, as those stations receive the most of the sliver of government funding that NPR and PBS receive.

“This order defies the will of the American people and would devastate the public safety, educational and local service missions of public media—services that the American public values, trusts and relies on every day,” said America’s Public Television Stations CEO Kate Riley. She went on to note that those rural stations provide a “lifeline in hundreds of communities where there is no other source of local media.”

Donald Trump is trying to force Harvard University into subservience, and on Friday he announced that the institution will lose its tax-exempt status. 

“We are going to be taking away Harvard’s Tax Exempt Status. It’s what they deserve!” Trump posted on Truth Social. 

The move comes after weeks of threats following Harvard President Alan Garber’s announcement last month that the university would not give in to the Trump administration’s demands, outlined in a letter from the Department of Education. These included discontinuing diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, reforming Harvard’s admissions process for international students, and dismantling programs with “egregious records of antisemitism.”

Following Harvard’s reply, Trump cut $2.2 billion in grants to the school along with a $60 million contract. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem also demanded records on the “illegal and violent” activities of the institution’s international students, threatening to end Harvard’s ability to enroll any future international students if it didn’t comply.

Trump followed up with plans to pull $1 billion in medical grants to the university, accusing Harvard of “grandstanding” by publicly refusing to defy the White House. But the university isn’t backing down, and has the support of its staff: Over 80 faculty members have pledged to donate 10 percent of their salaries for up to a year to support the university’s cause, with the list growing.  

It’s all part of conservatives’ war on higher education, which they see as a liberal bastion in American life. Many on the right were also incensed at university protests across the country against Israel’s war in Gaza over the past year. Now, it seems that Trump is threatening the existence of America’s oldest university as a show of force. 

This story has been updated.

The Trump administration has shut down a Biden-era program to end sewage backups into central Alabama homes, labeling the whole thing “illegal DEI.”

NBC News reports that Trump ended the $26 million effort to rebuild water infrastructure in Lowndes County earlier this month, with an executive order. The program was meant to end 14 years of sewage backing up into homes in the majority-Black area. The Department of Justice’s assistant attorney general for civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, said, in accordance with the order, that the DOJ “will no longer push ‘environmental justice’ as viewed through a distorting, DEI lens.”

In 2023, an independent investigation by the DOJ found that the county’s low-income residents, mostly Black, have not had basic sanitation for generations. Human wastewater is piped into ditches and poorly constructed systems instead of wastewater systems, leaving sewage to collect in yards, open areas, and woods.

Increased rainfall in recent years due to climate change has led to contaminated water flooding into homes, vegetation, and even drinking water. It’s not uncommon for untreated sewage to back up into residents’ backyards, or even sinks and bathtubs. A 2017 study found that a third of the county’s adults suffered from ringworm, an intestinal parasite that was thought to have been eradicated in the U.S. More than 300 families in Lowndes County have to deal with this problem.

“We have to be extra sanitary because people getting sick can be a problem,” Annye Burke, a local resident, told NBC. “The health concerns are real. In 2025 we shouldn’t have to deal with this, but it is what it is.”

The Alabama Department of Health had neglected the problem, showing “a consistent pattern of inaction and/or neglect concerning the health risks associated with exposure to raw sewage,” according to the DOJ’s 2023 investigation. The ADH told NBC that “the installation of sanitation systems and related infrastructure is outside the authority or responsibilities.”

According to the Trump administration, it’s not the federal government’s responsibility either. The White House has also moved to end environmental justice in the Environmental Protection Agency, which would hurt similar efforts across the country to end environmental hazards in different communities, the majority of which are in areas where Trump supporters live. It seems that ensuring people can live free in uncontaminated areas is too woke for the right wing.

Donald Trump’s announcement Thursday that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would replace Mike Waltz to serve as the interim national security adviser appears to have taken the State Department completely by surprise.

When a reporter asked State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce during a press briefing about Rubio’s new role, she was visibly caught unawares.

“It is clear that I just heard this from you,” Bruce said.

A flustered Bruce couldn’t answer questions about the announcement, clearly reeling. “Well, I have some insights as to the potential of certain things that might happen,” she vamped.

“You can have a general sense of what’s possible, and then you see that manifest usually, but I think that one thing certainly that I have learned is that things don’t happen until the president says they’re going to happen,” she added, another incredible non-statement.

Bruce admitted she’d been caught off guard, incredulously attributing Trump’s sudden announcement to “the miracle of modern technology.”

If the State Department’s spokesperson wasn’t made aware of the announcement, it’s likely that Trump’s decision was not given much time to marinate at the State Department, raising questions about whether Rubio had any advance notice at all that he’d be taking on yet another government job.

Rubio now wears several hats for the Trump administration. The secretary is also serving as the head of what remains of USAID and the acting archivist at the National Archives and Records Administration—and in doing so, has found himself leading both an agency that has violated the Federal Records Act and the one that is meant to ensure that doesn’t happen.

Bruce’s apparent shock also raised even more questions about the circumstances surrounding Waltz’s sudden departure earlier Thursday. The former national security adviser, who was responsible for precipitating the Signalgate scandal that rocked the White House, will now serve as Trump’s ambassador to the United Nations.

Mike Waltz, the Trump adviser who accidentally invited a journalist to a war plans group chat on Signal, was caught casually scrolling through his Signal messages during a Cabinet meeting Thursday. Calls and messages to or from Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Vice President JD Vance could be seen on his phone, which appeared to have no privacy screen and the brightness raised to the max.

Waltz, who was White House national security adviser at the time the photos were taken, seemed to think it was a good idea to use Signal in a room full of reporters.

Trump announced Thursday that Waltz will be leaving his post as national security adviser. Instead, he’s being nominated as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Maybe he’ll find a privacy screen by the time he starts his new job.