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August 29, 2025 • 12 mins
Tim Daly, President of The Creative Coalition (TCC), and Robin Bronk, its CEO, on the a urgent fight to protect the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) - a vital program now at risk due to proposed congressional defunding.
Following President Trump's call to cut NEA funding, The Creative Coalition has mobilized a powerful group of Hollywood actors, creators, and industry leaders-including Jason Isaacs, Iain Armitage, Pauline Chalamet, Michael Chiklis, and Rachel Bloom, among others - to defend this critical resource. Congress will soon vote on the NEA's future, which impacts 41 million Americans across every district. The Creative Coalition has been actively advocating on Capitol Hill and via social media.
Says Daly, "Slashing arts funding threatens not just culture, but the future legacy we leave our children." Bronk adds, "Cutting the NEA isn't just a cultural loss-it's a fiscal mistake that harms Main Street America."


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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Tim, you're the president of the Creative Coalition. You are
facing a huge wall right now, both you and Robin are,
And I'm telling you, I don't think the average person
understands that forty one million people are going to be
affected by this, and so is Main Street America because
we depend on these funds.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
That's absolutely right. And I'm glad you mentioned Main Street
America because one of the common misperceptions about the National
and Down for the Arts is that it's supporting big
Hollywood or Big Broadway or the huge artistic organizations. And
that may be partially true, but the real beauty of
this organization is that it gives grants to every single

(00:40):
congressional district in the United States. So it's the small communities,
the rural communities, the small cities that benefit the most
from these programs.

Speaker 1 (00:47):
Robin, you're the CEO of the Creative Coalition. Now for
you to be in this moment of now, we've got
to activate listeners, don't we. This is going to get
This is so far beyond just the government making decisions.
We've got to get activation.

Speaker 3 (00:59):
Well, what's good news is is Tim and I were
on Capitol Hill a couple of weeks ago, and we're
told that if constituents are activated, call Capitol Hill. Call
two zero two two two four three one two one,
ask to speak to your representative. Call back, ask to
speak to your senators, and just say I'm from North Carolina.

(01:23):
I'm a constituent. I want the National Endowment of the
Art for the Art National Endowment for the Arts to
be funded.

Speaker 4 (01:30):
The funding is two hundred and seven million dollars. It
is a drop in the federal budget.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
But here's the North Carolina statistics that are pretty exciting.
The National Endowment for the Arts usually distributes about nineteen
million dollars to North Carolina. That nineteen billion million dollars
grows to over twenty five billion dollars for the state.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
That's crazy odds.

Speaker 3 (01:57):
So if you don't care about the arts, if you
don't care about of citizens, if you don't care about
strategic thinking, if you don't care about your kids, care
about the money, whatever it is, call to zero two
two two four three one two one.

Speaker 4 (02:11):
And listen. I grew up in Clemson, South Carolina.

Speaker 3 (02:14):
Oh we are those NYA funded programs. That was my
lifeline and look like it to do today.

Speaker 4 (02:22):
I mean, why take that away from the kids.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Oh you just hit it right on the head right there.
Oh my god. Because that's one of the main main
things I started to do while researching was how is
this going to affect creative minds that are just coming
into the lime night light now?

Speaker 3 (02:38):
And even not creative minds. It doesn't matter. You could
be a business head, a math head. You need to
know strategic thinking discipline. I learned that there was a
Shakespeare because of my community theater. We had a general
store in our town. There was a taxicab that doubled
as a sheriff's car.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
That's where I grew up.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
But having these ANA funded community theaters was my lifeline.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Wow, Jim, the NEA is not even new. You guys
have been around since nineteen sixty five. You've been actively
involved for many, many decades.

Speaker 2 (03:17):
Yeah, well, the Creative Coalition hasn't been around since sixty five.
The NEA has, and it's been responsible for some of
the greatest cultural institutions in this country. But I do
want to just make sure that your listeners understand that
we are not an organization that is advocating for people

(03:37):
to become professional artists. We are about the entire citizen
read because the thing that arts does is that it
marries the left brain and the right brain. So and
the NAA is a perfect example of that. It creates
art programs so that people are enlightened and inspired and
their critical thinking is engaged and their imaginations create creativity engaged.

(03:59):
But it also generates economic benefit. So it really is
an incredibly successful program. That it's vital that we to
our culture, to our society, that we keep it alive,
because not just for the next generation of artists, but
for the next generation of creative, imaginative thinkers, whether they're

(04:21):
doctors or plumbers, or lawyers or politicians. We need people
to be able to have minds that can think of
the newest, most outrageous thing and bring it to life.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Wow, I'm so blown away by this because I know
that here in Charlotte, when the Carolina Theater, when it
was refurbished and brought back to life. I mean, there
had to have been any a money involved in there,
because it is about bringing things to the people and
to a community. And I feel like that maybe I'm
wrong here, Robin. Is this an attack on free speech?
Because when you started attacking you know that stage that

(04:54):
you're taking away my free speech.

Speaker 3 (04:58):
You know, there's a lot of attacks going on, and
free speech is one of the.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
Things that the Creative Coalition is a champion of. I
I tend to be linear. Let's get this Anya funded.
It's doable. There's a lot of stuff going on in
the world.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
This little portion is doable, and then we fight the
next battle.

Speaker 1 (05:18):
Please do not move. There's more with Tim Daily and
Robin Bronk coming up next. Tim is the president of
the Creative Coalition. Robin is the CEO of the Creative Coalition.
Let's get back to that talk. Tim, what is that
next step that we need to do as listeners, as
a community, because I mean, Charlotte is surrounded by so
many different small towns, and I know for a fact

(05:40):
that they've got this going on inside their cities and
they need it because it brings the teacher who happens
to be working with a guy that works at a
grocery store, and it brings everybody together as one.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Here's what I think we can do. One is we
can go to our school board meetings and say, do
not cut arts from our public school because our children
are three times more likely to graduate from high school
if they have a curriculum in the arts. The other
is that they can just take a moment to be
aware of the arts in their lives, because you would

(06:12):
be hard pressed to find someone that didn't have exposure
to the arts every single day, whether it's listening to music,
watching television, seeing a movie, reading a book, or a poem,
doing a dance. Arts are part of our lives. There
would separate us human beings from other animals on this planet.
So we have to be present in order to acknowledge

(06:33):
how important arts are to us. And the other thing
is that we have to ask ourselves are we artists?
Not are we professional artists?

Speaker 4 (06:40):
But are we artists?

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Do we take pride in making a beautiful garden or
a beautiful dinner, or so a costume for our kids,
play or play the guitar in our basement, or singing
our church choir. If you do any of those things,
the answer is yes, you are an artist. You just
aren't a professional artist. But those things are vitally important
to all of us. So embrace that and know that

(07:03):
there's an organization that's going to support you in that
beautiful pursuit.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
You are on my street when you talk about that
when you say you are an artist, because I will
sit with other creative people inside this forest. We planted
seventeen hundred trees in nineteen ninety seven, and it is
to prove to people that, look, we're this is a canvas.
We're going to make this canvas work. But you're so right, well.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
Thank you. I appreciate that, and I, you know, will
remind all of your listeners that it is it really
is crucially important. I mean, I think about children and
how I don't think there's a parent out there that
hasn't had their kid come home from school with something
that they've created and the parent says, how where did
they come up with that? Wow? I think, how did

(07:49):
they think of that? And then somewhere along the lines
we discourage that. And my question is why why not
encourage that blue sky thinking? Because where are we going
to get the next big idea if we don't have
the most creative, imaginative population, which I believe we still have,
but we need to support that. So no matter what
people do, they are thinking about it in a critical

(08:12):
way and coming up with the most imaginative and creative
ideas that they can.

Speaker 4 (08:18):
I want to also chime in. Listen, we are in
a country.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
Now that's someone that's divided on different issues. I do
not believe, I truly with my heart, do not believe
that anyone's against the arts. It's just how we get
there so and no one is against a vibrant economy.
It seems like the National Endowment for the Arts is
the answer across political aisles.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
What kind of a time frame are we talking about here, Robin?
And the thing is, do we have a backup plan
as well?

Speaker 4 (08:50):
Well?

Speaker 3 (08:51):
We The timeframe is if you if your listeners can
please call Congress again two two two, two four three
one two one is the easiest way, ask for their
representatives and senators, but they can also email.

Speaker 4 (09:05):
You could just go onto the congressional website.

Speaker 3 (09:07):
And there I sort of say, and I learned this
from my actor friends, if you don't have a plan B,
you will succeed. So right now, for the next couple
of weeks, let's not have a plan B, but let's
do bombard Congress with support for this National Endowment for

(09:28):
the Arts budget.

Speaker 1 (09:29):
Now, Tim, you know how social media is. People like
to do their clickbait, and they also like to jump
in there and kind of you know, put some propaganda
in action. How are you guys prepared to take this
on when they start coming up against you, because you've
got to have a heart of steel.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, I mean, part of our strategy is to ignore
the haters, because you know, it just makes me depressed
and doesn't really do anyone any good. But the other
thing is just to try to calmly explain what these
benefits are, because you know, you cannot fudge these numbers

(10:06):
and these these facts. I mean, you know everyone, first,
there's been studies add infinitum about the effect that music
has on math and the connection between music and math.
This has been scientifically proven over and over again. And
for those people that you know are dedicated to STEM education,
I would say, well, look at music and let's call

(10:27):
it steam science, technology, engineering, arts and math. It's a
better acronym and it's more inclusive of what makes a
well round and a productive human being. So I would,
you know, just stick to my to my arguments, which
are make just nothing but common sense.

Speaker 4 (10:47):
You asked a great question.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
I have never run into people saying I hate the arts.

Speaker 4 (10:54):
They don't. No one says it on either side.

Speaker 3 (10:57):
So this is probably the perfect storm of an issue
to bring maybe bridge some gaps.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Wow, it's also fascinating. I would love to see your
notes when you go to these meetings and see what
you're jotting down, because I mean you, every day has
got to be a classroom to both of you because
everybody's coming at you with so many different ideas, and
with you being the president and you being the CEO,
you've got to have answers somewhere along the way.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Yeah, do that, brother, We you know, we do it
at Capitol Hill.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
We have great staffs, we have great researchers. We're thoroughly briefed.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
And one of the things I think Tim mention real
quick is that these celebrities who are part of the
creative polish who are going up to Capitol Hill, we
also bring industry leaders from every industry.

Speaker 4 (11:52):
From pharmaceutical to consumer goods, because.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
They all had arts in their schools and that's why
there's a success and whatever.

Speaker 4 (12:01):
Business there.

Speaker 3 (12:02):
But this is probably we're probably the most selfless lobby.

Speaker 4 (12:05):
Tim's still going to work whether there's an anya or not.
His colleagues are going to work.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
So really this is for for for the Charlottes of
the world.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Yeah, yeah, this is this.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
We are we are actually I would describe us as
patriotic Americans.

Speaker 1 (12:23):
Here you go.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
We are we are. We are patriots because we believe
that America is the most creative, uh and imaginative country
in the world, and we want to keep it that
way by supporting people's ability to use their creative mind.

Speaker 1 (12:38):
Well, you guys have got to come back to the
show anytime in the future. Ten minutes with you is
just not enough time.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Oh, thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Well if only my kids would say that.

Speaker 1 (12:48):
You guys be brilliant today.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Okay, thank you to thank you
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