A federal judge has knocked down the core of President Trump’s executive order barring federal funding for NPR and PBS, saying it violated the broadcasters’ First Amendment rights on its face.
A District Court judge has found that a Trump White House executive order to defund NPR and PBS violated the First Amendment and is therefore “unlawful and unenforceable.” It wasn’t immediately clear what the decision, which could be appealed by the administration, would mean for the future of federal funding of public broadcasting.
In his ruling, Judge Randolph D. Moss of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, said “the First Amendment draws a line, which the government may not cross, at efforts to use government power – including the power of the purse – ‘to punish or suppress disfavored expression’ by others.”
Moss said the president’s executive order, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidies for Bias Media” issued in May of last year “crosses that line.”
Trump’s executive order stated: “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.” The president’s order and materials that accompany it accuse the public broadcasters of ideological bias, in NPR’s case due to its news coverage. The networks deny this.
The order “singles out two speakers and, on the basis of their speech, bars them from all federally funded programs,” Moss, who was nominated by President Barack Obama, wrote. “It does so, moreover, without regard to whether the federal funds are used to pay for the nationwide interconnection systems, which serve as the technological backbones of public radio and television; to provide safety and security for journalists working in war zones; to support the emergency broadcast system; or to produce or distribute music, children’s or other educational programming, or documentaries.”
“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,” Moss said.
Under the Constitution, the U.S. government cannot discriminate against people on the basis of the views they express; for news outlets, this extends to news coverage.
Trump’s executive order set in motion a series of events that ultimately knocked the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — the congressionally chartered entity through which federal dollars flowed to public media outlets — out of business. For more than a half-century, most federal money for public media has been funneled through the nonprofit Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The president insisted that all of the $1.1 billion that he and Congress had earlier agreed to set aside for public media outlets, including NPR and PBS member stations, be clawed back. The Republican-led Congress acquiesced. The ruling however would enable a future Congress to resume funding public media if it chose to do so. It also establishes the right of local public media stations that take federal subsidies to make their own programming decisions without government pressure — including on whether to take NPR or PBS shows.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “This is a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law. NPR and PBS have no right to receive taxpayer funds, and Congress already voted to defund them. The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”
Last August, CPB said it would close its doors after serving as a conduit for federal funding to public broadcasting for decades.
In a statement, NPR said the ruling “is a decisive affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press — and a win for NPR, our network of stations, and our tens of millions of listeners nationwide.”
“Public media exists to serve the public interest — that of Americans — not that of any political agenda or elected official. NPR and our Member Stations will continue delivering independent, fact-based, high-quality reporting to communities across the United States, regardless of the administration of the day.”
NPR’s lawyer, Theodore Boutrous, added: “The Court’s decision bars the government from enforcing its unconstitutional Executive Order targeting NPR and PBS because the President dislikes their news reporting and other programming,” Boutrous said.
In a statement, PBS, said it was “thrilled with today’s decision,” calling the president’s order a “textbook unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation, in violation of longstanding First Amendment principles.”
Disclosure: This story was written and reported by NPR Correspondents David Folkenflik and Scott Neuman. It was edited by Managing Editors Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.
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