The president and chief executive officer of the NPR, Katherine Maher, testifies during an audience of the House Outight and Government Reform Committee at the American Capitol on March 26, 2025. NPR and several member stations continue on the Trump administration about an executive decree leading the company for public dissemination to stop the financing of the NPR and the PBS.
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Andrew Harnik / Getty Images / Getty Images North America
NPR and three Public Radio stations in Colorado filed a complaint Tuesday morning before the Federal Court against Trump’s White House President’s decree Without alternating the use of funds appropriate by the Congress for NPR and PBS.
“It is not always obvious when the government acted for the purpose of reprisals in violation of the first amendment.” But this wolf comes like a wolf, “says the legal memory for public broadcasters.” The express target order expressly NPR and PBS because, according to the president, their news and other contents are not “fair, exact or impartial”. “
The line concerning the “wolf” was drawn from a dissident of 1988 by the judge of the American Supreme Court Antonin Scalia.
The trial indicates that the administration usurted the law of the congress to direct how federal money will be spent and to adopt laws. This appoints President Trump, director of the White House budget, Russel Vought, the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Maria Rosario Jackson, president of the National Endowment for the Arts, as defendants.
The White House did not immediately comment on the costume.
A team that includes the lawyer noted of freedom of expression Theodore J. Boutrous filed the NPR trial and the stations of Colorado Jointly in the District of Columbia. The costume calls Trump Start of the executive decree “Reprisals of textbooks” and an existential threat to the public radio system “on which millions of Americans across the country count for news and vital information”.
“The executive decree is a clear violation of the constitution and protections of the first amendment in matters of freedom of expression and association, and freedom of the press,” said the president and chief executive officer Katherine Maher, in a press release.
The different profiles of the three stations joining the combination capture the attraction and scope of the wider public radio system: the statewide Colorado public radiowhich is based in Denver; Aspen public radio which broadcasts throughout the Fork Roaring Valley; And KsutOriginally founded by the Indian tribe in the south of the UTE and now serving four tribes recognized by the federal government in the Four Corners region in Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah.
Trump’s order of May 1 has taken the form of a directive on the board of directors of the public distribution company, which distributes more than half a million dollars each year to public broadcasters, mainly at local stations. By status, three -quarters of this money are devoted to television, a quarter on the radio.
Trump cited his authority as president under the Constitution and federal laws to make the ordinance and declared that neither NPR nor PBS “presents a fair, exact or impartial representation of current events to taxpayers”. In other public statements, Trump and his allies called on public propaganda -to -from the left “and made disparaging remarks. An information sheet that accompanies it White House Cited the assertion that NPR has published articles “insist (ING) that COVVI-19 did not come from a laboratory” and “refused to cover the history of the Hunter Biden laptop”.
The MAHER of NPR has rejected such ideological characterizations, stressing such declarations of Trump to affirm that it was trying to demand an illegal remuneration for their media coverage.
“These are reprisals, discrimination based on the point of view in violation of the first amendment. The Supreme Court has ruled several times over the past 80 years that the government has no right to determine what matters as a biased ‘integrity.”
Trump’s legal status to make such a decree was in question even before Tuesday was submitted.
Congress allocates money to the company for public dissemination two years in advance to isolate public broadcasters of political pressure on ephemeral controversies. The CPB was authorized by the law of the congress but implemented as a private company. Indeed, The organization continues Trump itself on a previous decreein which he claimed to dismiss three of the five members of the Board of Directors of CPB.
When Trump said he ordered the CPB not to finance NPR or PBS longer, the director general of the company said that he had no ability to do so.
“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the authority of the president,” said CPB chief Patricia Harrison, former co -chair of the National Republican Committee, in a statement. “The congress directly authorized and financed the CPB as a private non -profit company entirely independent of the federal government.”
In the press release, Harrison noted that The law congress has adopted to create CPB “Exposedly prohibited by” any department, agency, officer or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision or control over educational television or radio, or more (CPB) or one of its beneficiaries or entrepreneurs “.
Harrison and CPB have actually ignored Trump’s orders – to keep its members of the board of directors, because the case is working by federal courts – and taking no measures to retain money at NPR and PBS or hundreds of stations that send funds to the two national broadcasters.
Trump clarified in his order that the beneficiaries of federal funds from CPB could not, under his decree, send money to PBS and NPR. NPR generally receives approximately 1% of its annual CPB income and another percent indirectly stations. On average, CPB provides each year at each public radio station 8 to 10% of their income.
The relationship is however closely linked, public radio considering itself as an interconnected system. The weekly NPR public for its programs, articles, podcasts and other offers exceeds 43 million Americans, according to the network, including through its local stations.
Journalists of the local station frequently appear in NPR News magazines; The network often provides publishing and advice for regional collaborations between local stations; And NPR News members are committed to joining a shared set of ethical standards. NPR manages and operates the land distribution system allowing member stations and community broadcasters to deliver and download content to distribute. In addition, the network and its member stations are based on CPB to help acquire rights to disseminate music to use on its programs.
The executive decree is a front in the attack on the Trump administration against the public media – itself part of a larger attack on the large information media.
Trump’s Republican allies in the American house held an audience To which Maher was assaulted for the two personal publications on social networks showing a liberal inclination of the years before joining the network and journalism published before his arrival. (In his testimony, Maher underlined the NPR policies which include a firewall preventing business leaders from making editorial judgments for the editorial hall.) PBS, Paula Kerger, was questioned on a video published on a website of New York City Television featuring a drag queen for a program planned for young children. (Kerger said he had never run on television and was removed.)
The president of Trump as president of the Federal Commission Commission, Brendan Carr, launched surveys at the subscription locations broadcast by the member stations of NPR and PBS. He suggested that they are not distinguished from advertisements on for -profit networks, a violation of federal law. (PBS and NPR say that they have worked closely with agency staff for decades to ensure that these spots respect the law.) CARR FCC supervised to which licenses are granted to disseminate by using federal waves.
And Trump called on Congress to eliminate all current and future funding for public media and the public distribution company, although he did not send an official request for the current funding to be recovered.
Earlier this spring, the congress led by the Republicans adopted a budgetary measure of the stop which fully finances CPB until September 2027.
Disclosure: This story has been reported and written by the media correspondent NPR, David Folkenflik and published by the assistant editor Emily Kopp, the editor-in-chief Vickie Walton-James and the editor-in-chief Gerry Holmes. As part of the NPR protocol to account for himself, no manager of the company or the director of the news examined this story before its publication publicly.
