The leaders of National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service said Sunday they are mulling over their legal options now that President Trump is seeking to strip them of public funding.
“We are looking at whatever options are available to us,” NPR CEO Katherine Maher said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “I think it is a little preliminary for us to be able to speak to the specific strategies that we might take.”
Citing ideological bias, Mr.Trump issued an executive order Thursday directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board of directors to “cease federal funding for NPR and PBS.”
PBS CEO Paula Kerger said lawmakers have previously tried to claw back funding for public broadcasting, but said, “This is different this time.”
“They are coming after us in many different ways,” Ms. Kerger said.
She noted that Republicans are trying to take back funds that have already been appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and that the head of the new head of the Federal Communications Commission has challenged CPB’s “ability to accept sponsorships from corporations.”
Ms. Kerger also said the Trump administration has sought to remove three of the five board members of the CPB. The corporation responded by suing Mr. Trump and arguing that he has no authority to fire them.
“We have never seen a circumstance like this, and obviously, we are going to be pushing back very hard because what’s at risk are our stations — our public television, our public radio stations across the country,” Ms. Kerger said.
In March, Ms. Maher and Ms. Kerger testified before a House subcommittee on government efficiency that NPR and PBS fulfilled their mission to deliver nonpartisan news and programming nationwide.
GOP lawmakers were not buying it.
“PBS news is not just left-leaning, but it actively uses taxpayer funds to push some of the most radical left positions,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia Republican, said in her opening statement.
Mr. Trump ran with that sentiment in the “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” executive order he signed last week.
The order instructs CPB’s board to pull the plug on direct funding for NPR and PBS to the “maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.” It also instructs the board to “minimize or eliminate” indirect funding to NPR and PBS.
“Unlike in 1967, when the CPB was established, today the media landscape is filled with abundant, diverse, and innovative news options,” the order says. “Government funding of news media in this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
Mr. Trump and Republicans insist NPR and PBS have championed liberal ideology.
In a social media post last week, the White House said NPR and PBS “receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as ‘news.’”
On Sunday, Ms. Maher pushed back.
“Our people report straight down the line,” Ms. Maher said. “Not only do they do that, they do so with a mission that very few broadcasting organizations have, which is a requirement to serve the entire public. That is the point of public broadcasting as we bring people together in those conversations.”
She said part of the problem has been the White House’s unwillingness to work with NPR.
“We have been making requests of the Trump administration to have their officials on air,” Ms. Maher said. “We would like to see more people accept those invitations.”
“It is hard for us to be able to say we speak for everyone when folks won’t join us,” she said.
