PBS Sues Trump Over Defunding Effort
White House bill would cut off PBS, NPR.
WASHINGTON, June 2, 2025 – The Public Broadcasting Service sued President Trump on Friday, seeking to halt an executive order intended to defund the public broadcaster.
The complaint, which named Trump and several officials within his administration as defendants, argued that the executive order “is blatant viewpoint discrimination” that “smacks of retaliation for, among other things, perceived political slights in news coverage.”
Filed jointly by PBS and PBS Member Station Northern Minnesota Public Television Inc., the suit asserted that “without congressionally appropriated funds…PBS and PBS Member Stations will be unable to fulfill the goals set forth in the Act [establishing PBS], to the detriment of communities across the country.”
Trump’s executive order directed the CPB to “cease direct funding to NPR and PBS” and to “ensur[e] that licensees and permittees of public radio and television stations, as well as any other recipients of CPB funds, do not use Federal funds for NPR and PBS.” It also directed other federal agencies to “terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS.”
The suit argued that the order jeopardizes both the 22 percent of PBS’s 2025 budget that comes from CPB and other federal agencies, and the 61 percent that comes from member station dues. Some local PBS Member stations, unable to pay dues, would lose access to PBS content, and PBS asserted “may be forced to cease operation.”
PBS’s complaint joins a similar lawsuit filed by National Public Radio which also seeks to halt Trump’s executive order. However, the legal battle over the executive order may soon be moot. Trump is expected to send legislation to Congress this week that would codify budget cuts to PBS into law that, if passed, would supersede his executive order.
