Taxpayer-funded National Public Radio and three affiliates have sued the Trump administration to overturn President Donald Trump’s executive order that ended funding for NPR and the Public Broadcasting Service, two major arms of the far-left, hate-Trump media.

The lawsuit claims that Trump violated the Administrative Procedure Act, the First Amendment, and the leftist outlets’ “due process” rights.

Trump has targeted NPR and PBS for their far-left, anti-American, often-bizarre stories and reporting for some time. On May 1 he ordered the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop wasting tax money on them.

Trump’s order explained that the days when a publicly funded media organization was needed are over. “Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” Trump wrote. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”

But that isn’t so much the problem as NPR-PBS’s far-left bias.

Continued Trump:

At the very least, Americans have the right to expect that if their tax dollars fund public broadcasting at all, they fund only 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. The CPB’s governing statute reflects principles of impartiality: the CPB may not “contribute to or otherwise support any political party.”  47 U.S.C. 396(f)(3); see also id. 396(e)(2). 

The CPB fails to abide by these principles to the extent it subsidizes NPR and PBS. Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.

But CBP does contribute through its subsidization of far-left, flat-out crazy “journalism.” Among the enlightening material it has produced, the White House noted, are these gems:

• NPR ran a story titled “Cannibalism: It’s ‘Perfectly Natural,’” in which an author described eating another human’s placenta: “It was really the prep that made it taste good. Granted, the [husband] was a chef and so he knew how to prepare it osso bucco style and used a really nice wine I had brought. It smelled great. It didn’t taste bad.”
• In 2021, NPR declared the Declaration of Independence to be a document with “flaws and deeply ingrained hypocrisies.”
• In 2022, NPR scrapped its decades-long Independence Day tradition of reading the Declaration of Independence on air to instead discuss “equality.”
• NPR subsequently issued an “editor’s note” warning the Declaration of Independence is “a document that contains offensive language.”
• NPR apologized for calling illegal immigrants “illegal.”
• NPR sounded the alarm about young men who abstain from masturbating to pornography.
• NPR featured a Valentine’s Day story centered around “queer animals,” in which it suggested the make-believe clownfish in “Finding Nemo” would’ve been better off as a female, that “banana slugs are hermaphrodites,” and that “some deer are nonbinary.”
• PBS devoted a panel to what it “mean[s] to be woke” and “white privilege.”
• NPR routinely promotes the chemical and surgical mutilation of children as so-called “gender-affirming care” without mentioning the irreversible damage caused by these procedures.
• In 2021, a PBS station aired a “children’s program” that featured a drag queen named “Lil’ Miss Hot Mess.”
• NPR educated the nation on the “whole community of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts” and “trans-ceratops.”

But that’s not all. After NPR suspended long-time writer Uri Berliner for exposing the outfit’s far-left bias, NPR CEO Katherine Maher’s record of far-left activism surfaced. City Journal’s Christopher Rufo exposed her as a hate-Trump leftist, and Maher herself has confessed she favors censorship of viewpoints she doesn’t like. Beyond that, she was a shill for President Joe Biden. 

Now, of a sudden, Maher is a big fan of the First Amendment. 

Trump’s order is “is retaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination in violation of the First Amendment,” she said:

The Supreme Court has ruled numerous times over the past 80 years that the government does not have the right to determine what counts as “biased.”…

NPR has a First Amendment right to be free from government attempts to control private speech as well as from retaliation aimed at punishing and chilling protected speech. By basing its directives on the substance of NPR’s programming, the Executive Order seeks to force NPR to adapt its journalistic standards and editorial choices to the preferences of the government if it is to continue to receive federal funding.

NPR is a non-partisan news organization that adheres to and upholds the highest standards of public service in journalism.

As more than one congressmen noted, NPR has the right to publish what it wants. It does not have a right to tax money.

The Lawsuit

The 43-page lawsuit accuses Trump of violating the APA — which governs how the executive branch makes rules and regulations. 

The lawsuit argues that Trump does not have the power to end funding for NPR and PBS because “through the Public Broadcasting Act, has expressly prohibited the actions directed by the Order — and no provision of the Constitution allows the President to override Congress’s will.”

Citing the First Amendment, Count 2 says “retaliation is the Order’s plain purpose. The Order’s text and the materials that accompanied it make unmistakably clear that the Order is intended to — and does — retaliate against NPR because of its protected speech.”

The third count alleges “viewpoint discrimination,” while Count 4 claims the order infringes upon the “free association” rights of NPR and its affiliates. “The Order seeks to force local public radio stations to cut existing ties with NPR to remain eligible to receive federal funding, including Corporation grants,” the lawsuit alleges.

The fifth count alleges a violation of NPR’s “due process” rights. Trump’s order “purports to order the Corporation to terminate all direct and indirect funding to NPR, in disregard of NPR’s substantial reliance interests in its continued eligibility for such funding.”

NPR fans disinterred old video of the late Fred Rogers, host of the long-running Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, to claim that tax money for NPR is a vital national interest.