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Floor Speech

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Ms. KLOBUCHAR. Mr. President, I rise today in strong opposition to the President's request to Congress this week to eliminate $9.4 billion in funding that has already been passed and signed into law. Let's say that again--that has already been passed and signed into law.

Anyone who watches ``Schoolhouse Rock!'' and listens to the song knows how a bill becomes a law. A Republican-led House at the time and a Democratic-led Senate came together; they made an agreement; they passed a bill; and it was signed into law by the then-President. But this President thinks he can just come in and change everything when it comes to really important things for people in this country that I am about to get to. That is just not how it works. We have got to do our jobs, and people need to stand up and say: This is our part of the job. We make the decisions about the funding. The President can veto them. He can work with us, you know, as we could be doing right now. Instead, it is just a one-pony show, but that is how this place works.

So what this proposal would do would gut funding that has already been appropriated for broadcasting--public broadcasting--and slash critical international aid funding, which are programs that have long had bipartisan support. I am the daughter of a newspaperman. I care a lot about people getting information, getting news, and right now, I care a lot about it in rural America because there has been such a breakdown of news coverage--of small newspapers that have folded, in part, because we won't do anything about the social media companies-- about Facebook and Google--and how they are able to use the content without being reimbursed. We just let it sit there as their lobbyists come in and stop it.

But while we are doing that in a lot of these areas now, the only news--the only way for them to find out about what is going on with a storm or what is happening with a wildfire or what is even happening with their local softball team or what is happening with the high school or what business is opening or closing--is through these sources of public radio and public TV.

Public broadcasting reaches nearly 99 percent of Americans with free programming, delivering lifesaving emergency alerts by the local news and shows that talk about what is actually happening locally and what is true and what is happening and what events are going on and when they can attend the school fair--all those kinds of things. But President Trump has decided to try to claw back the money Congress has already provided, I guess, to pay for these tax cuts for the wealthiest and to try to claw it back for over 1,500 local and regional public TV and radio stations throughout the country. Many of these stations provide free, high- quality programming to millions of households in rural areas. A lot of them don't even have what they need to see it online, and this is actually how they get their news. Even without that, they are in their cars a lot. They have a long way to drive, and they get a lot of stuff off the radio.

I know that in my State this will be particularly devastating. We have a lot of rural areas. Minnesota has a long history of public radio and TV programming. Every week, 20 million people across the country listen to the Minnesota Public Radio programs that were originally produced by the Marketplace, right? Since 1967, its award-winning news operation has documented some of the most important stories of our time. With Minnesotans coming from Cambodia and as to what was happening there, it was public radio that was covering that. In 1988, MPR's Main Street radio produced a documentary called ``Against the Grain,'' which gave rural Minnesotans the mic to talk about how they were handling economic change. In 2007, MPR News covered every detail of the collapse of the I-35W bridge, which was, of course, also warning people of where they had to go, of what was happening, of what was closed down. They are covering research on dementia, State plans for K through 12 education. The legislative session right now--both the public TV and public radio stations--are diligently covering every single detail of that while so many other news organizations have gone away or broken down.

What do we want to have--no coverage of a city council in Bemidji, MN? We don't want to know what is happening on Main Street? We don't want to know, when a flood comes in, what stores are open and when? Why would we decide to cut ourselves off from information at this moment in time?

Public TV is a place where so many people get their news that 58 percent of households watch PBS programming in a year. PBS Kids? There are 15 million monthly viewers of PBS Kids, and, yes, that is right. They don't get exposed to all the advertising and all the stuff they would see online because they are watching the PBS Kids. I think that is actually a pretty cool thing for our country that there is a place that kids can watch these programs. Every month, 36 million Americans watch their local PBS.

I was just at KSMQ TV in Austin, MN. I am sure most of the people haven't heard of it, but, boy, to the people in Austin, it is pretty important. For tens of thousands of people, that is where they get their news--72 percent. The former Republican Senate leader in the State senate is on the board because they know this is a place that can find out about local news or what is happening and where they can find out about local news in places like Granite Falls, MN, and in places like Bemidji, MN.

All across the country, in times of crisis, public radio and TV are essential to public safety. While many other news sources lost power and the internet during Hurricane Helene, Asheville's Blue Ridge Public Radio stayed online, bringing lifesaving news and information to the over 500,000 people in the region who were without power. When Hurricane Milton devastated the Tampa area, local public station WUSF hosted live call-in shows. It aired frequent local news briefings and maintained a regularly updated live blog with a text-only bandwidth option to keep residents informed and safe before and after the storm.

I have been in so many areas of my State in a time of crisis of flooding, where you go down there, and the mayor in a really small town is sitting there, but he is live-streaming on their local public access because that is the way. Where else are people going to go? Are they going to try 80 different platforms on social media? Hmm. Are they going to go and try to figure out which local TV station in the Twin Cities--miles away--is, maybe, showing something every so often about their problems? They go to public access purely for safety's sake and much less for kids seeing really good programming that is free of all the commercial aspects that are coming kids' ways every single day. There is the interesting, in-depth kind of reporting you can have on a place like Marketplace for what is happening with the economy or something to listen to when you are driving for hours and hours and hours that doesn't mean endless ads and endless marketing because you actually get to hear the news or you actually get to hear some music you like.

That is what public TV and public radio do for us. It is a treasure in our country. Public broadcasting creates a more informed community through quality programming on local and national events, and I think it is really going to be important, as we debate this in the next few weeks, to remember that ``local'' part. It shines a light on the people, places, history, and stories that are the fabric of towns and cities that are addressing the most pressing issues. We must support these vital resources that give voice to important local issues that wouldn't otherwise be heard. They are going to be lost to history. It is going to be a future erosion of the fabric.

So what do people do instead? Oh, go look on Twitter and see if you can protect your kids from a bunch of bad stuff that is on there. I use it. A bunch of us in here--almost all of us--have accounts. It is an important way to reach people. I am not cutting it down, but I would much rather have a kid in my State be watching the programming on public radio than looking on social media accounts right now or be watching it on public TV and listening to the radio. It is a safe space for them to get some programming.

The President's request would also deepen the damage this administration has done to our standing in the world through reckless cuts to foreign aid. I will give you one example. The President would impose major cuts to PEPFAR, the program that began under President George W. Bush to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS. Over many years, this program has earned consistent bipartisan support across 4 administrations and 10 Congresses. It is credited with saving over 25 million lives. These programs not only demonstrate Americans' humanitarian leadership, which certainly helps when you need a friend when there is a conflict going on abroad and you can point to things that you did in working with other countries, but they are also good for our country. We know that you just can't bury your head in the sand and hope that these problems in other countries and diseases aren't heading your way, whether it is Ebola or malaria or the bird flu. Oftentimes, these things come in from other countries. A pandemic, right? They come in from other countries.

So why would we, at this moment in time, cut off our investments in public health and in food aid and other things that are not only right, based on your belief that we are part of this world, and your faith or whatever makes you believe that, if we can save some lives for a small part of the Federal budget in America? Because we are so good at innovation and we are so good at producing things, and, yes, we have some extra food, and, yes, we have some rural economy that we want to keep strong, but also, just from a purely American, selfish version of this--and I don't mean ``selfish'' like a bad thing; I mean ``selfish'' like looking out for ourselves and our country--you would want to work with the rest of the world so these diseases don't come through your doors or you don't shut out and anger other countries when 90 percent of our customers, potential customers, are outside of our borders. You want to be able to sell stuff to them but not if we cut ourselves off from the rest of the world and make fun of them and call them the 51st State.

The President's proposed cuts to funding for UNICEF are also misguided. I was one of those kids at Halloween who would go trick-or- treating. I would have my bag and this little UNICEF box so people would put some pennies in, and I learned how much each of those dimes would mean for food for kids in other countries. We should be at the forefront of supporting brighter futures for children who are facing the hardships of poverty so the next generation can build strong societies and become close partners with the United States.

Think about people who study in our colleges and graduate schools from other countries. Think about what they offer us. Yes, they pay their way a lot of the time. That helps college. But do you know what else they do? Sometimes they stay. Sometimes they stay for a few years. Basically, they are getting advanced degrees. They are getting skills that we want them to get, and sometimes we want them to stay in our country. In my mind, we should be stapling a green card to their diplomas. That is why, when you look at Fortune 500 companies in our country and who has headed them up, a huge number of them are immigrants or are kids of immigrants who were educated in our country.

That is such a big part of our economy and our advantage across the world. Why would we be cutting them off--or they go back to their home countries and say: You know, I kind of liked it there. They start a business. Then they do business with our country. That is how this has worked.

American businesses need access to emerging markets. Many countries that have received U.S. assistance have become important American trading partners. The connection between foreign assistance and American prosperity is especially clear in agriculture. America has proudly fed the world for decades, and foreign aid has been a critical component of that effort. Food aid is a significant market for American farmers, purchasing over $4.25 billion in American commodities from 2020 to 2024.

Minnesota farmers and ag businesses sold a total of $70 million in ag products to USAID's Food for Peace Program in 2024 alone.

Continuing this aid should not be a partisan issue. It never has been, or we never would have gotten it done for all these years. It has been completely bipartisan. Some people come at it, as I said, because of their faith and their belief in helping the world. Some people come at it in terms of economics and think this is how we help people, and then this opens the markets for us. Some people come at it from a security standpoint, which I mentioned with health but also applies in other ways. If you help people and you are their friends, it can lead to good things down the line.

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, is sending our democracy backward at a time when we are completely connected and should be connected to the rest of the world.

These 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. They strengthen our country at home and strengthen American leadership around the world.

This is a test of our values, yes, but it is also economically the right thing to do to keep a fragmented country that is ever-divided somewhat on the same plane, by their kids having a public TV program to watch and learn from, from their community being able to tune in and watch a local sports game and are able to get their news about what happened on their city council and talk about it the next day.

So one person says: I don't know what happened. I read this on Facebook.

Then the other person says: No, that is not true. I actually saw the local news in Austin, and I saw what it said on our local public TV network--they don't even, maybe, know what that is, but they know what it is--and this is what I found out.

That is how people can come to some common agreement about what is happening in our world.

And there is 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, they will tell you: If we don't have that, how are we ever going to debate this levy proposal? How 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?

How are they ever going to have that without a public access station?

In this day and age, this idea that we are--what are we going to do? Just expect everyone to go out when they have three kids? Are they supposed to go out to every single meeting and watch it themselves? Or are they supposed to rely on that, maybe, they are going to get the right information on Twitter, but they are not sure if that person is telling the truth or that person is telling the truth? Or are we going to give them the first frontline 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 C-SPAN on platforms like YouTube, owned by Google; by Hulu, owned by Disney, in the modern day.

It is the same thing here. I want to make sure there are some sources where people can gather and look at this news and know they are getting something of quality, know they are getting something either that entertains them with music, without every single song having an ad in the middle of it, and that they are able to get the news they need to be good citizens of this great country. That is what is on the line with these rescissions.

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