#executive order 14290

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Judge Rules Trump's Order Stripping Funding From PBS and NPR Was 'Unlawful'

A judge ruled Trump’s efforts to defund PBS and NPR were unlawful, finding that an executive order infringed on First Amendment rights.

Cheyenne Roundtree at Rolling Stone:

A federal judge has ruled that President Trump’s efforts to defund PBS and NPR were unlawful, finding that a May 2025 executive order infringed on the news organisations’ First Amendment rights. “The Executive Order seeks to exclude NPR and PBS from receiving federal grants or other funding … because their news coverage, in his view, tips left, and because they were critical of him,” U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss said in a 62-page opinion and order Tuesday. “It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch.”

“The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the president disapproves of their ‘left-wing’ coverage of the news,” continued Judge Moss, an Obama appointee. However, he noted, the First Amendment, “does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.” The rebuke came a little under a year after Trump signed an executive order last May titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidisation of Biased Media,” which directed federal agencies to terminate “any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS” over alleged “bias” in the outlets’ reporting and their “partisan” news coverage. The public broadcasters quickly took the Trump administration to court, vehemently disputing the White House’s accusations of bias, and arguing that the executive order violated the First Amendment. [...]

While the executive order was deemed unlawful and unenforceable by Judge Moss, a Republican-majority Congress previously voted to rescind $500 million in annual funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was the agency responsible for dispersing the federal funds to PBS and NPR, according to The New York Times. And after the executive order was issued, The Corporation for Public Broadcasting shut down.

Judge Randolph Moss ruled that Donald Trump’s anti-American executive order (EO 14290) stripping federal funding from NPR and PBS to be a gross infringement of 1st Amendment expression. The GOP-controlled Congress later voted to ratify the rescissions to NPR and PBS funding.

See Also:

AP, via HuffPost: Judge Blocks Trump Order To End Funding For NPR And PBS

[justinspoliticalcorner]

PBS sues Trump over executive order to cut funding

PBS sued President Donald Trump to block his effort to cut off federal funding for the public broadcaster.

Kevin Breuninger and Lillian Rizzo at CNBC:

The Public Broadcasting Service on Friday sued President Donald Trump to block his attempt to cut off its federal funding, and accused the president of retaliating against the public broadcaster over “perceived political slights in news coverage.” Trump’s executive order targeting PBS’ funding “will upend public television,” lawyers for the broadcaster behind “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and “Sesame Street” wrote in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. The U.S. Constitution and the half-century-old law governing public television forbid Trump from attempting to defund PBS or “serving as the arbiter” of its programming, PBS argued. The lawsuit from PBS and one of its member stations in Minnesota came three days after National Public Radio, or NPR, filed a similar suit against Trump and his administration. “After careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations,” a PBS spokesperson told CNBC in a statement. The nonprofit public media outlets both want the courts to invalidate Trump’s May 1 executive order commanding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, and all executive agencies to “cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.” The White House said after PBS’ lawsuit was filed that the CPB was “creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime.” “Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS,” spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement Friday evening. “The President was elected with a mandate to ensure efficient use of taxpayer dollars, and he will continue to use his lawful authority to achieve that objective.” Trump’s order declared that the idea of the government funding the news media is “not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.” It also accused both PBS and NPR of failing to present “a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” Lawyers for PBS said they dispute Trump’s assertions “in the strongest possible terms.” But regardless, the president is legally barred from meddling with the broadcaster’s funding or its content, they wrote. They cited a federal telecommunications law’s dictate that no “department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States” may “exercise any direction, supervision, or control over public telecommunications, or over [CPB] or any of its grantees.”

PBS files a lawsuit against the Trump Regime over anti-American executive order (EO 14290) targeting federal funding for the network, along with NPR and CPB.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

NPR And 3 Local Stations Sue Trump Administration Over Funding Cuts

Trump purported to cut congressionally allocated funding for NPR and PBS with the stroke of a pen.

Sara Boboltz at HuffPost:

National Public Radio and three Colorado public radio stations are fighting back against President Donald Trump’s executive order purporting to cut their congressionally allocated funds, filing a lawsuit in federal court Tuesday. Trump targeted NPR and PBS in a May 1 order that claimed both offered biased programming and thus did not deserve taxpayer money. “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens,” read the president’s order, seemingly contradicting itself. Critics, along with lawyers for NPR and PBS, say the president does not have the ability to revoke funding that already has been earmarked for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funds to both media outlets. In their complaint, filed in Washington district court, NPR and the local stations say Trump’s order “violates the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association, and also threatens the existence of a public radio system that millions of Americans across the country rely on for vital news and information.” [...] Trump’s executive order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board to cut off direct funding for NPR and PBS “to the maximum extent allowed by law” and also “decline to provide future funding.” [...] The Colorado stations that joined the suit are the Denver-based Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT, which serves area Native tribes.

NPR and 3 local Colorado stations sue the tyrannical Trump Regime for issuing an executive order (EO 14290) aimed at cutting funding for NPR and PBS in the NPR v. Trump lawsuit.

See Also:

Daily Kos: NPR sues Trump for violating the First Amendment

The Guardian: NPR sues Trump administration over funding cuts it says violate first amendment