NPR and three Colorado member stations sued the Trump administration Tuesday over the president’s executive order seeking to halt federal funding for public media.
The lawsuit — filed in federal court in Washington by NPR, Colorado Public Radio, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT Public Radio — argues that President Donald Trump’s May 1 executive order “violates the expressed will of Congress and the First Amendment’s bedrock guarantees of freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of association.” Plaintiffs in the case include Trump, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
Trump’s executive order, which instructed all federal agencies to terminate direct and indirect funds for NPR and PBS, claiming that both entities push “biased and partisan” news, marked a sharp escalation in the Trump administration’s assault on the free press. The move sought to halt all funding from the private Corporation for Public Broadcasting — to which Congress appropriates over $500 million per year — to both news organizations.
In its lawsuit, NPR asks the court to block enforcement of Trump’s order, alleging that the order exemplifies “textbook retaliation” in violation of the First Amendment.
“It is not always obvious when the government has acted with a retaliatory purpose in violation of the First Amendment. ‘But this wolf comes as a wolf,’” the lawsuit reads, referencing a 1988 dissent penned by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. “The Order targets NPR and PBS expressly because, in the President’s view, their news and other content is not ‘fair, accurate, or unbiased.’”
In a statement on the lawsuit, free speech lawyer and counsel for NPR Theodore J. Boutrous called Trump’s executive order “blatantly unconstitutional,” adding that seeking to halt federal funding for NPR not only harms NPR, but also the “tens of millions of Americans across the country who rely on them for news and cultural programming, and vital emergency information.”
“It contravenes the will of Congress and violates the constitutional rights of NPR and its Member stations,” Boutrous said of the president’s order. “The Public Broadcasting Act and the First Amendment both protect the editorial independence of NPR and local public radio stations that receive federal funding from precisely this kind of governmental interference.”
According to the filing, the lead counsel in NPR’s lawsuit is Miguel A. Estrada, a Republican attorney whose 2001 nomination to the D.C. Circuit by then-President George W. Bush generated controversy when Senate Democrats used a filibuster to block his confirmation.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting had already previously sued the Trump administration to stop the president from removing three board members, and the organization said after Trump’s executive order that it was “not subject to the President’s authority.”
Tuesday’s lawsuit is the latest in a legal battle between news media organizations targeted by the president for cuts in federal funding and the Trump administration.
Employees for the U.S. Agency for Global Media and outlets funded by it sued the agency and its top officials after USAGM announced that it would terminate funding and grants for global news platforms under its purview, including Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.
