Judge Rules Trump’s Order to End Funding for PBS, NPR Was an Illegal First Amendment Violation
Todd Spangler
Tue, March 31, 2026
A federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s executive order last year to end funding for PBS and NPR public media violated the First Amendment.
In a ruling Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss of the District Court for D.C. said Trump’s executive order to cease funding for NPR and PBS is unlawful and unenforceable. The judge wrote that 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,” Moss wrote.
Trump’s order defunding PBS and NPR “singles out two speakers and, on the basis of their speech, bars them from all federally funded programs… Although there are many lawful reasons that the government might decline to make ‘a valuable governmental benefit’ available to someone, punishing disfavored private speech is not one of them.”
Moss also noted that Trump’s order canceled federal funding for public media “without regard to whether the federal funds are used to pay for the nationwide interconnection systems, which serve as the technological backbones of public radio and television; to provide safety and security for journalists working in war zones; to support the emergency broadcast system; or to produce or distribute music, children’s or other educational programming, or documentaries.”
A copy of the ruling is available at this link.
Moss was nominated to the bench by President Obama.
Variety has reached out the White House for comment.
Both NPR and PBS had sued Trump over his executive order suspending U.S. federal funding for public media. Trump’s order, issued May 1, 2025, alleged the public-media organizations engaged in “biased and partisan news coverage” and instructed the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease direct funding to NPR and PBS” to the “maximum extent allowed by law.”
CPB shut down in January 2026 after 58 years following the funding cuts. In July 2025, Congress approved Trump’s rescission package, eliminating $1.1 billion in funding for public broadcasting that had been approved for the next two years. After Congress approved the defunding of CPB, Trump celebrated in a post on Truth Social, writing that Congress had cut funding from “ATROCIOUS NPR AND PUBLIC BROADCASTING, WHERE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS A YEAR WERE WASTED. REPUBLICANS HAVE TRIED DOING THIS FOR 40 YEARS, AND FAILED….BUT NO MORE. THIS IS BIG!!!”
In a statement about Tuesday’s ruling, PBS said, “We’re thrilled with today’s decision declaring the executive order unconstitutional. As we argued, and Judge Moss ruled, the executive order is textbook unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation, in violation of longstanding First Amendment principles. At PBS, we will continue to do what we’ve always done: serve our mission to educate and inspire all Americans as the nation’s most trusted media institution.”
Katherine Maher, president and CEO of NPR, said: “Today’s ruling is a decisive affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press — and a win for NPR, our network of stations, and our tens of millions of listeners nationwide. The court made clear that the government cannot use funding as a lever to influence or penalize the press, whether as a national news service or a local newsroom. Public media exists to serve the public interest — that of Americans — not that of any political agenda or elected official.”
Maher added that NPR and its member stations “will continue delivering independent, fact-based, high-quality reporting to communities across the United States, regardless of the administration of the day.”
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