NPR, Three Public Radio Stations Sue Trump Over Planned Funding Cut

WASHINGTON — National Public Radio and three public radio stations in Colorado sued President Donald Trump and other administration officials on Tuesday over an executive order aimed at ceasing federal funding for them and similar media outlets.

In addition to the president, the other defendants named in the complaint filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia are Russel Vought, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, and Maria Rosario Jackson, chair of the National Endowment of the Arts.

Joining NPR in the lawsuit are Colorado Public Radio, Roaring Fork Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio, which broadcasts from Ignacio, Colorado, which also happens to be the headquarters for the Southern Ute Indian Reservation.

“The executive order is a clear violation of the Constitution and the First Amendment’s protections for freedom of speech and association, and freedom of the press,” said Katherine Maher, CEO of National Public Radio, in a written statement. 

“It is an affront to the rights of NPR and NPR’s 246 member stations, which are locally owned, nonprofit, noncommercial media organizations serving all 50 states and territories. Today, we challenge its constitutionality in the nation’s independent courts,” she said.

Trump signed the executive order on May 1, directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS” on the grounds of what he sees as their ideological bias.

“Neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax-paying citizens,” the order said. “The CPB Board shall cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.”

Maher on Tuesday called Trump’s actions blatant “retaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination” that violated the First Amendment.

“The Supreme Court has ruled numerous times over the past 80 years that the government does not have the right to determine what counts as ‘biased,’” Maher said in her statement. 

“NPR will never agree to this infringement of our constitutional rights, or the constitutional rights of our member stations, and NPR will not compromise our commitment to an independent free press and journalistic integrity,” she added.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has filed its own lawsuit against the president over his efforts to fire three of its board members.

In the lawsuit filed on Tuesday, NPR and the Colorado stations claim that Trump’s executive order violated the separation of powers and spending clause of the Constitution by ignoring laws passed by Congress that expressly shield public broadcasting from political interference.

The plaintiffs also claim the president violated their due process rights by failing to provide them with adequate notice of “meaningful process” before moving to cut off their funding.

“The president has no authority under the Constitution to take such actions. On the contrary, the power of the purse is reserved to Congress, and the president has no inherent authority to override Congress’s will on domestic spending decisions,” the complaint states. 

It goes on to say, “The sudden loss of all federal funding, including [Public Radio Satellite System] funding, as well as fees from local public radio stations that otherwise would acquire programming from NPR would be catastrophic to NPR. 

“NPR receives about 31% of its total operating revenue through fees from local public radio stations, including its member stations, and additional millions of dollars from CPB to support NPR’s coverage of particular issue areas, such as the ongoing war in Ukraine,” it continues. 

“NPR relies on CPB grants to support essential functions, and without federal funding, NPR would need to shutter or downsize collaborative newsrooms and rural reporting initiatives and, at the same time, also eliminate or scale back critical national and international coverage that serves the entire public radio system and is not replicable at scale on the local level,” it says, adding, “Loss of all revenue from local public radio stations would dramatically harm NPR’s ability to execute its journalistic mission.” 

Earlier this spring, the Republican-led Congress passed a stop-gap budget measure that fully funds CPB through the end of September 2027. Trump has not formally asked lawmakers on the Hill to roll that funding back.