Johnson says he'd 'like to' axe PBS and Planned Parenthood

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said on Wednesday he’d like to cut government spending for PBS and for Planned Parenthood, but he noted he might face some push back from Congress first.

“I would like to. That's for sure,” Johnson said in an interview on Fox News’s “The Story with Martha MacCallum,” when asked whether he plans to axe the two organizations.

MacCallum noted that could be prime targets for Republicans’ efforts to cut spending, since both groups receive funds from the government.

“Yeah,” Johnson said, when MacCallum clarified whether he wants to cut spending to the organizations, adding, however, that, “We got to build consensus to have the votes to do that.”

Johnson suggested more immediate spending changes might come from the White House.

“Now, some of this will be done by executive order out of the White House. He has a broad authority to do a lot of that,” Johnson said, referring to President-elect Trump. “But where Congress is involved, that's where it takes the hard work of legislating and getting everybody on the same page.”

“So there'll be lots of ideas that come out,” Johnson continued. “We don't want to put too many of it out right now, okay, but this is part of that preparing the playbook to unleash and unroll in January.”

Johnson spent much of the interview touting what he described as a “generational opportunity” to restructure government to promote “limited government and individual freedom.”

“Here we have, what I think Martha, is a generational opportunity to make real transformational change to the administrative state, the deep state. We want to take a blowtorch to the regulatory state. And I think what Elon and Vivek have in mind can help us in that regard,” Johnson said, referring to billionaire Elon Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whom Trump tapped to lead the inaugural “Department of Government Efficiency,” or DOGE.

The Congressional Delivering Outstanding Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus aims to be a counterpart to the commission led by Musk and Ramaswamy. The group is led by Reps. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.) and Pete Sessions (R-Texas) in the House and by Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) in the Senate.

Musk and Ramaswamy are scheduled to speak to Capitol Hill Republicans about DOGE on Thursday.

In response to the previous Trump administration proposal to eliminate federal funding for public media, in 2020, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger issued a statement touting the institution's work and its status at the time as the top-ranking institution as measured by public trust.

"PBS and our member stations have earned bipartisan Congressional support because of the vital role that public television plays in homes and communities across the country," the statement read in 2020. "For 50 years, PBS has served as a trusted source for educational and thought-provoking programming, including school readiness initiatives for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning across broadcast and digital platforms."

Planned Parenthood has been a regular target for Republicans because of the abortion services it provides.

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