PBS and NPR Sue Trump Over Executive Order to Cut Funding

Both broadcasters have filed lawsuits against Trump for his allegedly “unlawful” cuts to federal funding

Alongside several of its affiliate stations, the National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) have filed separate lawsuits to block Trump’s recent executive order demanding that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) cut federal funding to both networks.

The suits were filed within three days of each other in the US District Court in Washington, following the executive order’s claims that “government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”

NPR responded in its suit that the order “directly interferes with editorial independence by requiring them to seek programming elsewhere.”

Similarly, PBS’s suit says the order violates laws that “forbid the president from serving as the arbiter of the content of PBS’s programming, including by attempting to defund PBS,” adding that it “makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech. That is blatant viewpoint discrimination.”

Additionally, PBS stated that Trump’s order would jeopardize around 61% of its budget that comes from local station dues while “upend[ing] public television,” which for decades has aired shows like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and Frontline, the New York Times reported. 

Outcomes for both lawsuits will affect the 330 stations of the public television system of PBS, and the 246 stations of NPR. 

Around 16% of PBS’s $373.4 million annual budget comes directly from grants from CPB, which also recently sued Trump over his move to fire three members of its five-person board, claiming the president was exceeding his authority. 

President Trump has since formally asked Congress to rescind the $1.1 billion it has set aside for all public broadcasters for the next two years in a “rescission request,” NPR reported. 

This request must be approved by a simple majority of lawmakers in each chamber within 45 days for it to become law.