NPR and public radio stations sue Trump White House over funding cuts

NPR and 3 of its subordinate stations filed suit successful national tribunal Tuesday against President Trump‘s White House implicit the president’s enforcement bid to artifact backing for nationalist media.

Trump’s bid called for an extremity to authorities dollars for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer-backed entity that provides backing to NPR and PBS. He called the outlets “left helping propaganda.”

The suit says the May 1 enactment by Trump violated the 1st Amendment.

“The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, successful the President’s view, their quality and different contented is not ‘fair, accurate, oregon unbiased,’” the ineligible little said, according to an NPR report.

The suit besides says that the backing — presently astatine astir $500 cardinal annually — is appropriated by Congress. The allocation is made 2 years successful advance.

“Congress straight authorized and funded CPB to beryllium a backstage nonprofit corp wholly autarkic of the national government,” Corp. for Public Broadcasting main Patricia Harrison told NPR successful a statement.

Harrison said that the Corp. for Public Broadcasting is not a national bureau taxable to the president’s authority.

“The Executive Order is simply a wide usurpation of the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for state of code and association, and state of the press,” NPR President and Chief Executive Katherine Maher said successful a statement.

The bid is 1 of a fig of attempts by Trump to bounds oregon intimidate institutions helium does not hold with. Targets included instrumentality firms, universities and media companies specified arsenic CBS, which is being sued for $20 cardinal implicit a “60 Minutes” interrogation with erstwhile Vice President Kamala Harris during the 2024 statesmanlike campaign.

NPR filed the suit with 3 nationalist vigor outlets, including Denver-based Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Pubic Radio and KSUT which serves the Four Corners portion of Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.

Both NPR and PBS person stressed that the bulk of the national backing they person goes to stations that supply section quality and exigency alerts for their communities.