A federal judge on Tuesday barred the Trump administration from ending federal support for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss ruled that President Trump’s executive order, signed last May instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop funding NPR and PBS directly or indirectly, was unlawful. Moss concluded the order violated the First Amendment and amounted to impermissible viewpoint discrimination and retaliation directed at viewpoints the president dislikes.
The White House and Trump allies have long argued that NPR and PBS exhibit a liberal bias and should not receive taxpayer dollars. In July the president also signed a spending package that cut roughly $1.1 billion in funds earmarked for public broadcasting. Moss’s decision does not resolve the broader financial impact on public broadcasters; the ruling is likely to be appealed, and advocates say the system has already suffered significant harm.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson criticized the ruling, calling it “a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law.”
Separately, an appeals court panel on Tuesday stayed a district judge’s order that had required the administration to return hundreds of Voice of America employees to work from paid leave. U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth had ruled that placing additional VOA staff on leave was unlawful, but the appeals court’s stay delays implementation of that remedy.
Edited by: Srinivas Mazumdaru
