Trump vs Sesame Street
The War on NPR and PBS
Published: November 20, 2025 •
3 min read
On May 1, 2025, Trump signed an executive order stopping the funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, essentially dissolving the nonprofit created by Congress nearly six decades ago (started 1967). That eliminated about $465 million dollars a year, $1.1 billion over two years, that would have been used to help fund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
The administration argued public broadcasting showed political bias and that government media funding was outdated.
So who does this hurt? It hurts small, local TV and radio stations that can't get the revenue to function through donations and advertising to pay for their broadcasting. It also limits the ability of stations to air children's programs like Sesame Street for free. So yes, once again, it hurts the poorest among us.
So did Trump really stop the funding for the reasons he mentioned, or did it have to do with something else? Now this is going to sound like a joke, but it's not. What if Trump dissolved the organization that helps fund Sesame Street because of a puppet named Donald Grump?In 2005, Donald Grump appeared in a sketch on Sesame Street. He is a Grouch like Oscar. He is orange, has wild eyebrows, and a greedy streak. Sound familiar? He’s a parody...obviously based on Donald Trump.
I know what you're saying, I can't be suggesting that Trump would cancel this funding twenty years later in retaliation for parodying him in a kids' show. And I would agree. It's ridiculous. But, if you think about it, is it really that far-fetched? After every thing he has said, everything he has commented on that another president would ignore, is it really impossible? He once said Saturday Night Live (SNL) was a threat to democracy. That really happened.
When Trump doesn’t like something, he doesn’t ignore it. He obsesses over it. He wants it gone. Erased. Punished. Humiliated. Doesn’t matter if it’s a journalist, a rival, a late-night show comedian, or a puppet.
Still unconvinced? Obviously you haven't heard about Russia.
Around 2000, an episode of another puppet show called Puppets (Kukly) featured Vladimir Putin as a creepy gnome-like character in a satirical story. The Kremlin demanded that the network remove the Putin puppet and tone down criticism and, soon after, the independent channel NTV that aired it was taken over by the state-controlled company Gazprom. Many journalists left or were removed. Media historians often point to the NTV takeover and the end of Kukly as one of the first major signs of tightening control over Russian TV after Putin came to power.
So a puppet that offended a president ended up canceling the program, closing the network that aired it, and lead to a crackdown on media country-wide. A puppet did that. It puts my argument in perspective, doesn't it?
That should be a big, red flag.
