PBS on Friday sued President Trump and his administration over an executive order signed earlier this month that seeks to cut funding to the public TV network and NPR.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and comes days after NPR and three Colorado-based public radio stations separately sued the Trump administration over the same executive order. Both PBS headquarters and a northern Minnesota PBS station are plaintiffs in Friday’s case.
Lawyers for PBS said the executive order is “blatant viewpoint discrimination and an infringement of PBS and PBS Member Stations’ private editorial discretion,” and is a violation of the First Amendment and parts of the Public Broadcasting Act, which was passed in 1967. The suit argues that Mr. Trump does not have the authority to block federal funding to the public TV stations over their news coverage.
“The EO makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech,” the complaint says. “The EO smacks of retaliation for, among other things, perceived political slights in news coverage.”
Mr. Trump’s executive order instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the private nonprofit that serves as the steward of government funding to public media, to cease federal funding for PBS and NPR. The executive order dictates that the government “shall cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my Administration’s policy to ensure that Federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage.”
The order also says indirect government funding should be cut off, including funding to local stations that later reaches the national networks.
If the executive order is allowed to stand, the PBS complaint says, “it would have profound impacts on the ability of PBS and PBS Member Stations to provide a rich tapestry of programming to all Americans.”
In a statement to CBS News, White House spokesperson Harrison Fields said: “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is creating media to support a particular political party on the taxpayers’ dime. Therefore, the President is exercising his lawful authority to limit funding to NPR and PBS.”
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting also sued Mr. Trump recently over his attempts to fire three members of its five-member board, arguing that the president was exceeding his authority.
PBS CEO Paula Kerger said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” earlier this month that public broadcasters had “never seen a circumstance like this” and said the Trump administration was “coming after us on many different ways.”
Kerger said the executive order was just one way the administration was targeting public media. She said a possible rescission of already appropriated funds, and an effort to challenge sponsorships from corporations through the Federal Communications Commission, among other things, were possible.
“Obviously we’re going to be pushing back very hard, because what’s at risk are our stations, our public television, our public radio stations, across the country,” Kerger said.
She added that PBS only gets 15% of its funding from the federal government, but that some smaller stations receive up to 50% of their funding from federal sources and added the risks to the smaller stations are “existential” if the funding is cut.
Kaia Hubbard and
contributed to this report.
