PBS is suing President Trump’s administration on First Amendment grounds, arguing the president is trying to pull funding the from the broadcaster because of editorial coverage he disagrees with.
The suit filed Friday in federal court in Washington, D.C., accused the president of trying to “upend public television” and argues the law “forbids” him from pulling funding to it and other public broadcast outlets.
PBS’s suit follows a similar lawsuit filed earlier this week by NPR, which similarly argued Trump’s executive order targeting funding to public media “violates the Separation of Powers and the Spending Clause by disregarding Congress’s express commands.”
In a statement to The Hill on Friday, a spokesperson for PBS said, “after careful deliberation, PBS reached the conclusion that it was necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations.”
Trump and his allies have long attacked NPR and PBS over their funding, some of which comes from taxpayer dollars but a larger portion of which is derived from private donations and member stations.
On Capitol Hill, a push among Republicans to strip federal funding from public broadcasters is gaining steam, though some lawmakers expressed skepticism.
At a hearing last month, PBS president Paula Kerger defended the outlet’s editorial strategy and funding model, arguing the network provides vital services to Americans and particularly children through educational programming.
But Trump, in his executive order that has now sparked a pair of lawsuits, argued PBS and NPR are biased against his agenda in their news coverage and are undeserving of federal dollars.
“No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize,” his executive order on the matter reads. “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax paying citizens.”
