NPR And 3 Local Stations Sue Trump Administration Over Funding Cuts

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.”

“It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the First Amendment,” the complaint states.

″‘But this wolf comes as a wolf,’” it says, quoting the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia.

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.”

CPB is given about $500 million from Congress each year. During a congressional hearing in March, NPR CEO Katherine Maher testified that the media outlet received $11 million total from CPB, which it used primarily to maintain the broadcast systems used by public radio stations nationwide.

The Colorado stations that joined the suit are the Denver-based Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT, which serves area Native tribes.