Judge says Trump can’t bar NPR, PBS from any government funds

A federal judge ruled Tuesday that President Trump’s executive order seeking to bar any federal money from going to NPR and PBS tramples on those networks’ speech rights.

Congress cut off the two networks’ federal subsidy last year, but Judge Randolph Moss, an Obama appointee to the court in Washington, said Mr. Trump’s order went beyond that, barring the two networks from even getting federal grants for nonreporting activities.

He said that sort of categorical bar amounted to retaliation against an opponent and cannot survive constitutional scrutiny.

“The message is clear: NPR and PBS need not apply for any federal benefit because the President disapproves of their ’left-wing’ coverage of the news,” Judge Moss wrote. “Because the First Amendment does not tolerate viewpoint discrimination and retaliation of this type, the court will issue judgment against the federal-agency defendants.”

NPR, or National Public Radio, and PBS, or the Public Broadcasting Service, are radio and television networks. They include both a national organization and member stations throughout the country.

They used to get hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars each year from the Treasury Department through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a private nonprofit that was supposed to serve as insulation between the government and the reporting abilities of the two networks.

CPB’s money was revoked by the GOP-led Congress last year, at Mr. Trump’s urging.

Both networks also got other federal money, such as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Judge Moss said that money remained at issue even after congressional action.

Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, called the ruling “a decisive affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press.”

“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,” she said.

Mr. Trump, in an executive order last May, said the networks had forfeited their right to money by failing to provide “fair, accurate, unbiased and nonpartisan news coverage.”

“No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize,” he said.

In addition to ordering a cutoff of any funds allowed under law, he said in cases where money couldn’t be shut off, agencies were to look for instances of noncompliance to see if they could terminate the contracts.

Judge Moss didn’t rule on that aspect of the order Tuesday, but said it could be a legal issue going forward.

After Congress revoked the taxpayer funding last year NPR and PBS reported seeing a surge in donations, though it didn’t replace the full payout from Uncle Sam.