Overview

• NPR and three Colorado public radio stations filed a lawsuit May 27 in federal court in Washington, D.C., seeking to block President Trump’s May 1 executive order to halt federal funding for NPR and PBS.
• The complaint argues that the directive targets NPR’s news and programming as retaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination that violates the First Amendment.
• Plaintiffs assert the order usurps Congress’s power of the purse by flouting statutes that guarantee the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s independence.
• NPR receives only about 1% of its revenue directly from federal sources, while its member stations depend on CPB funding for approximately 8 to 10 percent of their budgets.
• PBS has not joined NPR’s lawsuit but is evaluating its own potential legal action over the executive order.