President Trump issued an executive order directing the company's public broadcasting and public television stations to withhold funds from PBS. On Friday, PBS led by Paula Kerger (right) and Lakeland PBS in Minnesota were sued. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images, Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images Closed subtitles
PBS and public television stations in rural Minnesota filed a lawsuit against President Trump on Friday for its executive order requiring public broadcasters to kill all online funds.
Litigation allegations Trump's orders It is illegal, beyond his power to serve as president and violates constitutional protections for freedom of speech, as he has made it clear that he does not like PBS's news coverage and programming.
"This action challenges unprecedented presidential directives to attack PBS and its member stations … in a way that will subvert public television," the lawsuit noted.
It continues: "EO has not tried to hide the fact that it is cutting off money from the content of PBS programming because of the content of PBS programming. It is blatant viewpoint discrimination and infringement of PBS and PBS member stations and private editorials of PBS member stations as appropriate."
PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger declined to comment on Friday.
"After careful consideration, PBS concluded that legal action is necessary to protect the editorial independence of public television and protect the autonomy of PBS member stations," the network said in a statement.
The Minnesota Station responded to PBS's logic, saying it joined the lawsuit, "emphasizing the dire consequences of local member stations and our programming."
In response, the White House said the CPB is “creating media to support specific political parties that taxpayers have a dime.”
"The president is therefore exercising his legal powers to limit funds to NPR and PBS," White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement. "The president was elected a task to ensure effective use of taxpayer money and he will continue to use his legal powers to achieve this."
Trump's executive order accuses NPR and PBS of failing to provide "fair, accurate, unbiased and nonpartisan news." He asserted that nowadays people have many media options.
The order states: “In this environment, government funding for news media is not only outdated and unnecessary, but also corrodes the emergence of news independence.” It prohibits CPB from sending money to PBS and NPR and prohibits local radio stations from sending any federal funds to the network.
On social media platforms, Trump exploded the web in capital letters: “Republicans have to return and completely separate themselves from NPR & PBS, this is the radical left 'monster', which greatly hurts our country!”
Both networks reject the representation.
In addition, the lawsuit filed by PBS and Lakeland, Minnesota PBS holds: "No matter any policy differences over the role of public television, our constitution and law prohibit the president from becoming an arbitrator of the content of the PBS program, including attempts to insufficient supply of PBS."
The parallel lawsuit filed by NPR on Tuesday and the parallel lawsuit filed by three Colorado public radio stations against the Trump administration on the same grounds.
Public TV Court documents say PBS will lose $81 million in federal grants annually, while a "large portion" of the $227 million paid by public TV to run programs from children's shows to Ken Burns' documentaries. The day after Trump issued the order, the U.S. Department of Education canceled Grants to CPB PBS pays for a major education program – about $31 million a year.
Lakeland PBS serves a region in northern and central Minnesota, which includes some of the state’s poorest counties and several tribal retentions. The station provides the only nighttime TV news program covering the area and provides local educators with course videos, lesson plans and other resources, the lawsuit says.
Although PBS member radio stations receive about 15% of funding directly from CPB on average, Lakeland PBS relies on CPB’s federal grants, accounting for 37% of its annual revenue. It says all the funds it pays for PBS for programming and other services come from these federal funds.
PBS shows that it accounts for more than half of Lakeland PBS lineup.
The lawsuit argues that Lakeland PBS does not have enough unrestricted funds to transfer other money to the expenses of the PBS program. It said that financial support from local companies is declining, not increasing. Locally based charitable funds are difficult to obtain.
“These content and services cannot be easily or affordable by Lakeland PBS,” the lawsuit states. “Therefore, the EO’s indirect funding column poses an existential threat to Lakeland PBS, the only source of local TV shows for hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans.”
The lawsuit was filed by Akin Gump Strauss, a major Washington-based law firm.
The order issued by Trump on May 1 was rejected by the privately integrated CPB board, and Congress allocated federal funds to public broadcasters, mainly local radio stations. The CPB has not passed the president's decree. It is suing him another executive order to fire three of its five members.
Like the NPR and PBS lawsuits, the CPB's lawsuit points to the protection Congress provides for CPB and public broadcasters as protections from the political pressure exerted by federal officials. They believe that the president is included.
According to House Speaker Mike Johnson and other lawmakers, Trump intends to send a formal request to Congress in early June to revoke the $1.1 billion allocated public broadcast it allocated for the next two years.
The spending was approved by the Republican-led U.S. House and Senate earlier this year and signed into law by Trump. It is unclear when the House and Senate will take the measure, but Johnson recently mentioned the withdrawal of the plan, part of a focus on cutting more spending. He vowed to "act quickly."
Congress will have 45 days to approve the revocation request, which will take effect once received.
Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and contributed by NPR Congress Correspondent Deirdre Walsh. It is edited by associate business editor Emily Kopp, executive editor Vickie Walton-James and executive editor Gerry Holmes. According to NPR's reporting agreement, no company officials or news executives reviewed the story before it was published publicly.