NPR notes that, less than two months into his second term as president, Trump began attacking National Public Radio and its televised counterpart, PBS, as “radical left MONSTERS.” In May, he followed up by issuing an executive order cutting federal funding to both NPR and PBS.
National Public Radio is expected to take its longstanding partner, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to trial this coming December.
According to NPR, on Thursday, the federal judge overseeing the lawsuit agreed to the December trial date. National Public Radio is expected to argue that, last spring, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting cancelled a contract worth $36 million in the face of mounting pressure from the White House.
In court sessions that took place on Tuesday and Thursday, National Public Radio presented evidence in support if its claims, prompting U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss to express skepticism of CFB’s assertion that it simply decided to reallocate funding for practical, rather than political, purposes.
The most plausible explanation for CFB’s reallocations, Moss said, was that the Cooperation was simply hoping to ensure its own survival.
“I am not sure I have received an answer at all to the question of what changed from April 2nd to April 4th, other than the fact that CPB was looking for ways to try and ingratiate itself with the administration and perhaps folks on the Hill in a desire to survive,” Moss said during the Thursday hearing. “[A]nd that it was perceived that the votes and the support that CPB needed would come from those who were hostile to the content of NPR’s speech.”
NPR notes that, less than two months into his second term as president, Trump began attacking National Public Radio and its televised counterpart, PBS, as “radical left MONSTERS.” In May, he followed up by issuing an executive order cutting federal funding to both NPR and PBS.
“All of a sudden there was this change. And so what happened to cause this change?” Moss asked Tuesday. “I have to say, the most plausible explanation for what’s happening here, is that everything is not quite as linear as “We’re for or against it’.”
“CPB is understandably trying to survive,” Moss said. “There are a lot of materials that are in the record here that say there are a lot of strategies going on: ‘What do we do? One thing we do is distance ourselves from NPR, because they don’t like NPR’.”
Later, on Thursday, Moss reiterated his point, saying he has yet to be “convinced that there is any real explanation of what changed other than the political climate and desire to try to earn some brownie points with those who CPB saw as attacking it.”
Sources
Judge sets trial over whether CPB pulled back from NPR due to White House pressure
NPR lawsuit alleges Corporation for Public Broadcasting gave in to political pressure
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