Oscar the Grouch appears onstage at the 39th Annual Daytime Emmy Awards on HLN at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on Saturday, June 23, 2012 in Beverly Hills, Calif. (Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP)
SESAME STREET FIGHT
PBS will be forced to cut back on new children’s programming if GOP budget cuts make it through Congress this week, one of the broadcaster’s executives exclusively told What A Day.
- In 1969, Congress was on the verge of slashing funds for public broadcasting when it tangled with an overwhelming force: Fred Rogers. The actor, who portrayed Mister Rogers on the beloved kids show, personally appeared on Capitol Hill. “It’s great to be able to stop when you’ve planned a thing that’s wrong, and be able to do something else instead,” Rogers told the Senate. And with that, funding for America’s public broadcaster, PBS, was saved. Never mess with Mister Rogers!
- Then came President Donald Trump. Republicans are ramming a plan through the Senate this week to cut $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which funds PBS, NPR and local stations. MAGA Republicans have long resented public media for its hard-hitting, fact-based, thoughtful news programming, in which they see liberal bias. Now, Trump wants it dead. “Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,” Trump recently threatened. PBS gets about 15 percent of its total budget from the federal government, and broadcasters in small towns and rural areas rely heavily on that money.
- But PBS is hardly just news! Just think of Mister Rogers — or Big Bird. PBS owns “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” “Arthur,” “Curious George,” “Cyberchase,” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” to name a few beloved kids’ shows. The ultimate classic American kids program, “Sesame Street,” launched on PBS in 1969, and still airs there.
The network will struggle to roll out fresh children’s programming if Trump’s budget cuts go through, a top executive told What A Day.
- “It’s going to keep us from being able to create new content,” Sara DeWitt, senior vice president and general manager of PBS Kids, the network’s children’s programming division, told What a Day.
- Limiting new shows would make it harder to stay current, even as kids attempt to navigate the new challenges of growing up in the digital era. “There are shows that kids have watched for decades, but then new things come out that are relevant to what kids are looking for today or what they need today,” DeWitt said.
- New episodes of existing programs may also be off the table, she said, pointing to longstanding series like “Daniel Tiger” (which is still in production) or “Arthur” (which has been officially dormant since 2022, but still releases other content).
- Funding cuts “may put into jeopardy the ability to do new episodes of those shows,” DeWitt said. Last year, PBS Kids launched a new show called “Carl the Collector” — their first with a lead character on the autism spectrum. “If this had happened last year, these cuts would happen, we wouldn’t be able to make a show like that,” she added.
- In other words, the looming funding cuts represent an existential crisis for PBS Kids. In May, Trump’s Education Department canceled a grant called Ready to Learn, which provided PBS and NPR with $23 million to create education shows and games. That was mindboggling, because the Trump administration awarded the same grant in 2020. PBS Kids even created new shows that aligned with the administration’s priority to prepare kids for the workforce, including “Lila in the Loop” and “Phoebe & Jay.”
“I find a lot of this really baffling,” DeWitt said. “This is different than anything we’ve ever faced before.”
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"I was surprised he was appointed.”
— Donald Trump, on Fed Chair Jerome Powell… whom he appointed in 2017.
NEWS NEWS NEWS
The Department of Justice and Trump allies are asking states to hand over data on voters and to let them inspect voting equipment. The requests are highly unusual, and election officials worry that the Trump administration is building a national file of voters, and that it might try to create new rules that would limit voting access.
The Department of Homeland Security deported five migrants to Cuba, Jamaica, Laos, Vietnam, Yemen, and the small African nation of Eswatini (formerly known as Swaziland). It’s the latest example of the administration sending migrants to places they have no connection to, known as third countries.
On that note, the Trump administration has fired 17 immigration judges across 10 states within the past week, according to the union representing the judges. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) alleged that one of the judges was fired for chatting with him when he visited the court a few weeks ago.
Twenty Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip today, most of whom died in a stampede caused by people rushing to food distribution sites run by an Israeli-American organization, the group announced. Israeli strikes killed another 41 people, including 11 children, local officials said.
A bunch of Trump memecoins are set to be unlocked tomorrow, allowing people to sell the cryptocurrency — which is expected to boost the president’s net worth by nearly $100 million. Remember: Memecoins have no intrinsic value, and simply rise or fall when people buy them… or don’t. For instance, Chinese crypto billionaire Justin Sun already pledged to purchase $100 million worth of the coins… which is the easiest way to curry favor with Trump.
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) blasted Trump for calling for Texas to redraw its district lines ahead of the midterms to help keep the GOP’s House majority. Newsom floated the idea of restricting in California if that happens, to help gain more Democratic seats: “We could change the constitution with the consent of the voters, and I think we would win that. I think people understand what’s at stake in California,” Newsom told Pod Save America.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., our nation’s top health official and biggest weirdo, has a new obsession: Pushing Canada to pardon 400 ostriches. Apparently they were exposed to bird flu, but RFK Jr. wants them to be spared in the name of science. “The Secretary has urged Canada not to kill the ostriches but to do further testing to try to better understand the virus,” an HHS spokesperson said. Dr. Oz even offered to house them at his Florida ranch.
NYC Mayoral Candidate Zohran Mamdani privately told the city’s business elite that he would discourage the use of the controversial phrase “globalize the Intifada” if elected, the Wall Street Journal reports. The mega-wealthy crowd was impressed by Mamdani’s rizz — but they’re still skeptical of his socialist positions: “It could have been a lot worse,” one attendee said. That’s promising… considering the other choices are a certified creep and a corrupt cop!
Hunter Biden asserted that Democrats lost the 2024 election because they didn’t stay “loyal” to his father. “We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down,” Hunter told former DNC Chair Jaime Harrison in a podcast. Harrison’s view? Things could’ve gone differently if Democrats had the loyalty “Republicans have for Donald Trump.” Yeah… I dunno about this one, fellas!
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