During remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN spoke about the Trump administration cutting already appropriated funding for public radio and broadcasting.
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00:00I rise today in strong opposition to the president's request to Congress this week to eliminate
00:06$9.4 billion in funding that has already been passed and signed into law. Let's say that again.
00:13Already passed, signed into law. Anyone that watches Schoolhouse Rock, listens to the song
00:18know how a bill becomes a law? A Republican-led House at the time, a Democratic-led Senate,
00:24came together, made an agreement, passed a bill, signed into law by the then president.
00:30But this president thinks he can just come in and change everything when it comes to really
00:36important things for people in this country that I'm about to get to. That's just not how it works.
00:42We got to do our jobs, and people need to stand up and say, this is our part of the job.
00:47We make the decisions about the funding. The president can veto him. He can work with us,
00:52as we could be doing right now. Instead, it's just a one-pony show. But that's how this place works.
00:59So what this proposal would do would gut funding that's already been appropriated for broadcasting,
01:07public broadcasting, and slash critical international aid funding, programs that have long
01:13had bipartisan support. I'm the daughter of a newspaperman. I care a lot about people
01:20getting information, getting news. And right now, I care a lot about it in rural America,
01:25because there has been such a breakdown of news coverage, of small newspapers that have folded,
01:32in part because we won't do anything about the social media companies, about Facebook and Google,
01:36and how they're able to use the content without being reimbursed. Just let it sit there as their
01:42lobbyists come in and stop it. But while we're doing that, in a lot of these areas now, the only news,
01:50the only way for them to find out about what's going on with the storm, or what's happening with
01:55the wildfire, or what's even happening with their local softball team, or what's happening with
02:00the high school, or what business is opening or closing, is through these sources of public radio
02:08and public TV. Public broadcasting reaches nearly 99% of Americans, with free programming, delivering
02:17life-saving emergency alerts, vital local news, and shows that talk about what's actually happening
02:24locally, and what's true, and what's happening, and what events are going on, and when they can attend
02:30the school fair, all those kinds of things. But President Trump has decided to try to
02:38claw back the money Congress has already provided, I guess, to pay for these tax cuts for the
02:42wealthiest, but to try to claw it back for over 1,500 local and regional public TV and radio stations
02:51throughout the country. Many of these stations provide free, high-quality programming to millions
02:56of households in rural areas. A lot of them don't even have what they need to see it online, and this
03:04is actually how they get their news, but even without that, they're in their cars a lot,
03:07they have long ways to drive, they get a lot of stuff off the radio. I know that in my state,
03:14this would be particularly devastating. We have a lot of rural areas. Minnesota has a long history
03:20of public radio and TV programming. Every week, 20 million people across the country listen to the
03:29Minnesota public radio programs that were originally produced by Marketplace, right? Since 1967,
03:35its award-winning news operation has documented some of the most important stories of our time.
03:43Minnesotans coming from Cambodia, what was happening there? It was public radio that was
03:48covering that. In 1988, NPR's Main Street Radio produced a documentary called Against the Grain,
03:55which gave rural Minnesotans the mic to talk about how they were handling economic change. In 2007,
04:01NPR News covered every detail of the collapse of the 35W Bridge, which was, of course, also warnings to
04:07people about where they had to go, what was happening, what was closed down. They're covering
04:12research on dementia, state plans for K-12 education, the legislative session right now. Both the public TV
04:21and the public radio station are diligently covering every single detail of that, while so many other news
04:27organizations have gone away or broken down. What do we want to have no coverage of a city council in Bemidji,
04:34Minnesota? We don't want to know what's happening on Main Street. We don't want to know when a flood comes in, what
04:45stores are open and when. Why would we decide to cut ourselves off from information at this moment in time? Public TV, it's a pace where
04:56so many people get their news. 58% of households watch PBS programming in a year.
05:07PBS Kids, 15 million monthly viewers of PBS Kids. And yeah, that's right, they don't get exposed to all the advertising,
05:15all the stuff they'd see online because they're watching the PBS Kids. I think that's actually a pretty cool thing for our country,
05:21that there's a place that kids can watch these programs. Every month, 36 million Americans watch their local PBS.
05:32I was just at KMSQ TV in Austin, Minnesota. I'm sure most of the people haven't heard of it, but boy, the people in Austin, it's pretty important.
05:42Tens of thousands of people, that's where they get their news. 72% local carry. The former Republican Senate
05:51leader in the State Senate, he's on the board. Because they know this is a place they can find out about local news
05:59local news or what's happening. It's where they can find out about local news in places like Granite Falls, Minnesota, in places like Bemidji, Minnesota.
06:10All across the country, in times of crisis, public radio and TV are essential to public safety.
06:17While many other news sources lost power and internet during Hurricane Helene,
06:24Asheville's Blue Ridge public radio stayed online, bringing life-saving news and information to the over 500,000 people in the region without power.
06:38When Hurricane Milton devastated the Tampa area, the local public station, WSF, hosted live call-in shows,
06:47aired frequent local news briefings, and maintained a regularly updated live blog
06:53with a text-only low-bandwidth option to keep residents informed and safe before and after the storm.
07:00I have been in so many areas of my state in a time of crisis, of flooding,
07:05where you go down there and the mayor in a real small town is sitting there, but he's live streaming on their local public access.
07:14Because that's the way, where else are people going to go? Are they going to try 80 different platforms on social media?
07:22Are they going to go and try to figure out which local TV station in the Twin Cities, miles away,
07:29are maybe showing something every so often about their problems?
07:34They go to public access, purely for safety's sake, much less for kids seeing really good programming
07:43that's free of all the commercial aspects that come in kids' ways every single day,
07:50or the interesting in-depth kind of reporting you can have on a place like Marketplace
07:55for what's happening with the economy, or something to listen to when you're driving for hours and hours and hours
08:02that doesn't mean endless ads and endless marketing.
08:07Because you actually get to hear the news, or you actually get to hear some music you like.
08:12That's what public TV and public radio do for us.
08:16It's a treasure in our country.
08:21Public broadcasting creates a more informed community through quality programming on local and national events.
08:28And I think it's really going to be important as we debate this in the next few weeks
08:33that remember that local part.
08:35It shines a light on the people, places, history, and stories that are the fabric of towns and cities,
08:42addressing the most pressing issues.
08:45We must support these vital resources that give voice to important local issues
08:50that wouldn't otherwise be heard.
08:52They're going to be lost to history.
08:54It's going to be a further erosion of the fabric.
08:56So what do people do instead?
08:58Oh, go look on Twitter and see if you can protect your kids from a bunch of bad stuff that's on there.
09:04I use that.
09:06A bunch of us in here, almost all of us have accounts.
09:09It's an important way to reach people.
09:10I'm not cutting it down.
09:12But I'd much rather have a kid in my state be watching the programming on public radio
09:19than looking on social media accounts right now or be watching it on public TV and listening to the radio.
09:25It's a safe space for them to get some programming.
09:29The president's request would also deepen the damage this administration has done to our standing in the world
09:36through its reckless cuts to foreign aid.
09:38To give you one example, the president would impose major cuts to PEPFAR,
09:42the program that began under President George W. Bush to prevent the spread of HIV AIDS.
09:48Over many years, this program has earned consistent bipartisan support across four administrations and ten Congresses.
09:55It's credited with saving over 25 million lives.
10:01These programs not only demonstrate Americans' humanitarian leadership,
10:06which certainly helps when you need a friend, when there's a conflict going on abroad,
10:10and you can point to things that you did working with other countries.
10:15They also are good for our country.
10:17We know that you just can't bury your head in the sand and hope that these problems in other countries
10:21and diseases aren't heading your way.
10:24Whether it's Ebola or malaria or bird flu,
10:30oftentimes these things come in from other countries.
10:35Pandemic, right?
10:37They come in from other countries.
10:39So why would we at this moment in time cut off our investments in public health
10:44and in food aid and other things that are not only right based on your belief
10:52that we're part of this world and your faith or whatever makes you believe
10:57that if we can save some lives for a small part of the federal budget in America,
11:02because we're so good at innovation and we're so good at producing things.
11:05And yes, we have some extra food.
11:07And yes, we have some rural economy that we want to keep strong.
11:13But also just from a purely American selfish version of this,
11:17and I don't mean selfish like a bad thing.
11:19I mean selfish like looking out for ourselves and our country.
11:23You would want to work with the rest of the world so these diseases
11:27doesn't come in your doors or you don't shut out and anger other countries
11:32when 90% of our customers, potential customers, are outside of our borders.
11:38You want to be able to sell stuff to them.
11:42But not if we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world
11:46and make fun of them and call them the 51st state.
11:50The president's proposed cuts to funding for UNICEF are also misguided.
11:55I was one of those kids at Halloween that would go trick-or-treating.
11:59I'd have my bag in this little UNICEF box.
12:02So people would put some pennies in and I learned how much that each of those dimes
12:07would mean for food for kids in other countries.
12:11We should be at the forefront of supporting brighter futures for children,
12:16facing the hardships of poverty so the next generation can build strong societies
12:21and become close partners with the United States.
12:24Think about people that study in our colleges and graduate schools from other countries.
12:30Think about what they offer us.
12:32Yeah, they pay their way a lot of the time.
12:35That helps colleges.
12:36But you know what else they do?
12:37Sometimes they stay.
12:38Sometimes they stay for a few years.
12:40Basically, they're getting advanced degrees.
12:42They're getting skills that we want them to get.
12:45And sometimes we want them to stay in our country.
12:48In my mind, we should be stapling a green card to their diplomas.
12:53And that is how, when you look at Fortune 500 companies in our country
12:57and who's headed it up, a huge amount of them are immigrants or kids of immigrants
13:04that were educated in our country.
13:07That's such a big part of our economy and our advantage across the world.
13:13Why would we be cutting off?
13:15Or they go back to their home countries and say, you know, I kind of liked it there.
13:18They start a business.
13:19Then they do business with our country.
13:22That's how this has worked.
13:24American businesses need access to emerging markets.
13:29Many countries that have received U.S. assistance have become important American trading partners.
13:38The connection between foreign assistance and American prosperity is especially clear in agriculture.
13:45America has proudly fed the world for decades and food aid has been a critical component of that effort.
13:51Food aid is a significant market for American farmers purchasing over 4.25 billion in American commodities from 20 to 24.
14:00Minnesota's farmers and ag businesses sold a total of $70 million in ag products to USAID's Food for Peace program in 2024 alone.
14:11Continuing this age should not be a partisan issue.
14:13It never has or we never would have gotten it done for all these years.
14:17It has been completely bipartisan.
14:20Some people come at it, as I said, because of their faith and their belief in helping the world.
14:26Some people come at it in terms of economics and think this is how we help people and then this opens the markets for us.
14:33Some people come at it from a security standpoint, which I mentioned with health, but also applies in other ways.
14:39If you help people and you are their friends, it can lead to good things down the line.
14:45Mr. President, cutting funding for this international aid, not to mention cutting ourselves off from the information we need, especially in rural areas that so often in news deserts rely on public radio and public TV for their information,
15:02is sending our democracy backwards at a time when we are completely connected and should be connected to the rest of the world.
15:11These investments, compared to the rest of the federal budget, aren't as big, but their influence in the immediate and in the long term is immense.
15:26They strengthen our country at home and strengthen American leadership around the world.
15:32This is a test of our values, yeah, but it is also economically the right thing to do.
15:40To keep a fragmented country that is ever divided, someone on the same plane by their kids having a public TV program to watch and learn from,
15:51from their community being able to tune in and watch a local sports game or able to get their news about what happened on their city council and talk about it the next day.
16:02So one person says, I don't know what happened. I read this on Facebook.
16:05And the other person said, no, that's not true. I actually saw the local news in Austin and I saw what it said on our local public TV network.
16:13They don't even maybe know what that is, but they know what it is. And this is what I found out.
16:18That's how people can come to some common agreement about what's happening in our world.
16:23And there's no better place to start than on a local level, which is why when you talk to Republican or Democratic mayors or city council members,
16:32they'll tell you, if we don't have that, how are we ever going to debate this levy proposal?
16:36How are we ever going to get people to understand why we have to make a decision about the school and whether we close it down or whether we expand it or whether we close another school down?
16:46How are they ever going to have that without a public access station?
16:49In this day and age, this idea that we are, what are we going to do?
16:52Just expect everyone to go out when they've got three kids, they're supposed to go out to every single meeting and watch it themselves?
16:58Or they're supposed to rely that maybe it's going to get the right information on Twitter, but they're not sure if that person's telling the truth or that person's telling the truth?
17:05Or we are going to give them the first front line of information, which is what C-SPAN does, by the way, which is why Senator Grassley and I are trying to make sure that we get that C-SPAN on platforms like YouTube, owned by Google, by Hulu, owned by Disney, in the modern day.
17:24And same thing here.
17:27I want to make sure there are some sources where people can gather and look at this news and know they're getting something quality, know they're getting something either that entertains them with music, without every single song having an ad in the middle of it, and that they're able to get the news they need to be good citizens of this great country.
17:49That's what's on the line with these rescissions.
17:52I yield the floor.
17:53Thank you very much.
17:56There we are.
17:58There we are.
17:59There.
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