This week, U.S. District Judge Randolph D. Moss heard arguments in the lawsuit of National Public Radio, Inc. v. Trump. The lawsuit was filed earlier this year, in response to an executive order issued on May 1, 2025, seeking to halt federal funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
The order directed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to stop direct and indirect funding for NPR and PBS. The White House claimed that both were producing “biased and partisan news coverage” and spreading “radical, woke propaganda disguised as news.”
Lawyers for NPR say that the President was acting illegally when making that executive order, and was violating NPR’s right to free speech. In a report Friday, NPR said “The president’s order and materials that accompany it accuse the public broadcasters of ideological bias, in NPR’s case due to its news coverage. The networks deny this.”
“The executive order flagrantly violates NPR and its member stations’ First Amendment rights,” NPR’s lead trial attorney, Theodore J. Boutrous, argued in court. “He’s not making any secret of his views.”
Reports say that the judge heard arguments for two hours.
“I think our side argued very persuasively that this is a blatantly unconstitutional order that is on its face evidence of retaliatory discrimination against NPR as a result of the president’s displeasure with its editorial content,” said Steve Zansberg, a Colorado-based First Amendment attorney representing Aspen Public Radio, KSUT Tribal Radio, and Colorado Public Radio alongside NPR, following the hearing.
The judge is expected to issue a ruling soon, but a timeline was not given.