Overview
- At a summary-judgment hearing, NPR argued President Trump’s May 1 order ending federal subsidies for NPR and PBS violates the First Amendment by targeting viewpoint.
- Justice Department lawyers did not dispute that the president views NPR and PBS as biased but said he also seeks to defund taxpayer-funded media generally and argued NPR has not suffered legal harm.
- U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss signaled skepticism of the government’s position, telling DOJ it would be on firmer ground if the goal were simply to exit the news business.
- Moss floated a remedy to bind the federal government to the CPB–NPR settlement to avoid striking down the order, and DOJ declined to accept that proposal as both sides await his ruling.
- The dispute follows a party-line rescission of $1.1 billion in future public-media funding by Congress and CPB’s cancellation of a $35.9 million NPR contract that CPB later fully restored in a settlement.