Judge blocks Trump order to end funding for National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service
Source: AP
Updated 2:28 PM EDT, March 31, 2026
WASHINGTON (AP) A federal judge on Tuesday agreed to permanently block the Trump administration from implementing a presidential directive to end federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss in Washington ruled that President Donald Trumps executive order to cease funding for NPR and PBS is unlawful and unenforceable. The judge said the First Amendment right to free speech does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type.
It is difficult to conceive of clearer evidence that a government action is targeted at viewpoints that the President does not like and seeks to squelch, wrote Moss, who was nominated to the bench by President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
The judge noted that Trumps executive order simply directs that all federal agencies cut off any and all funding to NPR, which is based in Washington, and PBS, based in Arlington, Virginia. The Federal Defendants fail to cite a single case in which a court has ever upheld a statute or executive action that bars a particular person or entity from participating in any federally funded activity based on that person or entitys past speech, the judge wrote.
Read more: https://apnews.com/article/trump-npr-pbs-funding-executive-order-fbd9500e5f7400deab84ead188c35694
Link to ORDER (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.281165/gov.uscourts.dcd.281165.33.0.pdf
Frasier Balzov
(5,060 posts)Not just holding the purse strings but CLAWING BACK funding?
Putting the Corporation for Public Broadcasting out of business?
That may have been a popular move among a few twisted termites.
It was NOT popular with me or my fellow consumers of PBS and NPR programming!
J_William_Ryan
(3,496 posts)Reporting facts and the truth the Trump regime and conservatives dont like is hardly a viewpoint.
Indeed, the un-Constitutional retaliation against NPR and PBS is motivated by the wrongheaded notion that both are liberal.
And this is yet another example of Trumps contempt for the First Amendment and a free press.
orangecrush
(30,247 posts)BumRushDaShow
(169,713 posts)which took a big chunk of funding from PBS, so they have had to rely on donors (including Foundations). What needed saving was the CPB that was the umbrella over PBS and NPR (and their various programs).
orangecrush
(30,247 posts)BumRushDaShow
(169,713 posts)Or have been forced to go off the air.
orangecrush
(30,247 posts)BumRushDaShow
(169,713 posts)orangecrush
(30,247 posts)My Mom's family is from 6th St. South Philly little Italy.
WmChris
(740 posts)We will have a subprime court decision soon.🙄
AllaN01Bear
(29,485 posts)BumRushDaShow
(169,713 posts)AllaN01Bear
(29,485 posts)GiqueCee
(4,243 posts)... Insurrection For Idiots, chapter one, page one reads, "FIRST, CONTROL THE MEDIA. ALL OF IT".
As I never tire of saying, Trump is the worst thing to happen to this country since the Civil War. But on a deeper level, he is but a symptom of the malignant cancer that is corporatism, and the ravenous greed that drives the sociopaths that implement that rapacious philosophy.
orangecrush
(30,247 posts)calimary
(90,010 posts)Its long past time when SOMEBODY started saying NO to him.