CBS News: NPR on Tuesday sued President Trump and administration officials over an executive order signed earlier this month that seeks to cut federal funding to the news organization and PBS.
Filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the suit was brought by NPR and three Colorado-based public radio stations. It argues that Mr. Trump’s executive order violates the First Amendment and provisions of the Public Broadcasting Act, which was passed by Congress in 1967. The plaintiffs also assert that Mr. Trump did not have the authority to stop federal funding for NPR and PBS, and his order should be invalidated as unconstitutional.
The order, NPR and the three stations said in their complaint, is “textbook retaliation” and discriminates based on viewpoint, which is a violation of the First Amendment.
“The order’s objectives could not be clearer: the order aims to punish NPR for the content of news and other programming the president dislikes and chill the free exercise of First Amendment rights by NPR and individual public radio stations across the country,” the lawsuit states.
Mr. Trump and his Republican allies have long complained about NPR and accused it of being biased against conservatives. Project 2025, the sweeping policy roadmap overseen by the Heritage Foundation, calls for defunding both NPR and PBS.
The president’s executive order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides public dollars to NPR and PBS, and other federal agencies to “cease federal funding” and indirect funding for the two outlets. The directive said that taxpayers “have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only fair, accurate, unbiased, and nonpartisan news coverage.” The White House has claimed that the two outlets “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”
NPR Sues Trump Over Executive Order Slashing Funding
