Trump’s Order to Defund PBS Ruled Illegal

You can’t keep a Big Bird down. A federal judge has ruled that President Donald Trump’s controversial 2025 executive order to stop funding for PBS, home of programs such as Sesame Street and PBS NewsHour, was an illegal violation of the First Amendment.

On Tuesday (March 31), U.S. District Judge Randolph Moss of the District Court for D.C. ruled that Trump’s order to end funding for PBS, as well as NPR public media, was unlawful.

The judge also slammed Trump’s order as a form of “viewpoint discrimination and retaliation.”

“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 in his ruling.

The judge noted that although there are lawful instances in which the government might decline such funding, “punishing disfavored private speech is not one of them.”

According to the ruling, Trump’s order essentially stopped funding for public media with no 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.”

With his ruling, Moss issued an injunction barring Trump and any federal agencies from pulling further funding to PBS and NPR.

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In a statement following the ruling, PBS said they were “thrilled” with the decision.

“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,” the organization wrote.

The White House was less excited. In a statement to Variety, a spokesperson for Trump called the decision “a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law.”

“NPR and PBS have no right to receive taxpayer funds, and Congress already voted to defund them. The Trump Administration looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue,” the statement continued.

On May 1, 2025, Trump issued an executive order “ending taxpayer subsidization of biased media,” specifically targeting PBS and NPR.

The order instructed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to immediately cease providing funds to PBS and NPR, alleging “neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”

Both NPR and PBS sued Trump in response to the executive order, which cut millions of dollars in funding to the latter network’s beloved children’s programming, resulting in mass PBS Kids staff layoffs.

As a result of Congress passing the Rescissions Act of 2025, which effectively defunded the CPB by rescinding previously over $1 billion in promised financial appropriations for 2026 and 2027, the CPB was permanently shuttered in early 2026.