AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump issued an executive order overnight instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to halt all funding for PBS and NPR, which would impact those two networks, the roughly 1,500 public media stations nationwide, as well as national programs like the "News Hour."

William Brangham is here now to explain the latest.

So, William, the president has long said that he wants to cut funding for public media.

This is another approach to doing just that.

So what exactly does the executive order say?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right, Amna.

This has been a long on the president's wish list.

I mean, many GOP administrations have wanted to do this.

His administration, though, has been much more forceful about pushing for these cuts.

This executive order, as you noted, directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop all direct federal taxpayer funds from going to NPR and to PBS.

And, as we have reported in the past, that would have quite a few impacts across the network all over this country.

The president argues that public media in general has a liberal bias and that taxpayers should not be supporting that.

Last month, the president wrote this -- quote -- "Republicans must defund and totally disassociate themselves from NPR and PBS, the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country."

We should say, as we have before, the heads of PBS and NPR reject that categorization.

But, again, this executive order tries to zero out funding for those organizations.

AMNA NAWAZ: And, William, what about, though, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the CPB, which we should reiterate is a congressionally created corporation that directs about $500 million to both PBS and NPR every year?

What have they said in response?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: The head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Pat Harrison, cited that fact that you just stated, which is that CPB was created by Congress, not by the White House, and so the executive office has no authority over their governance.

In her statement, she went on to say -- quote -- "In creating CPB, Congress expressly forbade any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision or control over educational television or radio broadcasting or over CPB or any of its grantees or contractors."

So she's saying that Congress is in the driver's seat, not the White House.

The heads of PBS and NPR argued much the same.

Paula Kerger, the head of PBS, called this E.O.

-- quote -- "blatantly unlawful."

Katherine Maher, the head of NPR, said it will -- quote -- "challenge this executive order using all means available."

Of course, this also comes after the Trump administration this week tried to push out three members, all Democrats, from the board of CPB.

And CPB is now suing over that.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, William, last month you reported on a different possible means of cutting public media funding that was not an executive order.

What changed?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: That's right.

In the past, the administration had tried this process called rescission.

They said they were going to send a memo to Congress asking Congress to approve or deny clawing back the money that had been appropriated for the CPB.

But Lisa Desjardins told us the -- that the White House got nervous because they started to hear from some Republicans, not all, but that some were resistant to cutting public media because they liked the public media stations in their communities and they didn't want to cut it.

So, because of the GOP's tight margins and because they were going to have this big negotiation over this spending, immigration, tax bill, the White House tried this approach instead.

Again, it is unclear if this will work.

AMNA NAWAZ: So, William, just pull back for a little bit here.

How does this fit into the larger campaign by the Trump administration that they're waging against the press?

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: I mean, this is definitely part of a much larger strategy, that the president is pushing back on all of the organizations and institutions that he believes are against him and his agenda.

I mean, as we well know, most presidents have a fraught relationship with the press.

But few take it to the extreme that this president has, either rhetorically or legally.

I mean, he's repeatedly called the press the enemy of the people.

He has sued ABC and CBS and "60 Minutes."

He pushed the Associated Press out of the pool.

He's called pollsters very recently from major media institutions criminals who should be investigated for election fraud because they published polls showing that his current policies are unpopular.

There's an organization that's called Reporters Without Borders.

And, every year, they put out an annual measure of world press freedom.

We should put up this chart.

They just issued their most recent report, and it says that press freedoms in the United States have fallen to historical lows.

AMNA NAWAZ: William Brangham.

William, thank you, as always, for your reporting.

WILLIAM BRANGHAM: Thanks, Amna.

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That's at PBS.org/NewsHour/email.