President Donald Trump has become persona non grata on Sesame Street as PBS launched a lawsuit to block his federal funding cuts to the broadcaster.
PBS and a public TV station in Minnesota filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in Washington on Friday, accusing the MAGA president of “blatant viewpoint discrimination,” the New York Times reported. The suit comes after Trump signed a May 1 executive order axing all funding for PBS and NPR, alleging “bias” in their reporting.
PBS lawyers hit back against Trump in the filing, arguing that the proposed cuts violate laws forbidding the president from serving as the “arbiter” of its content, which included kids-focused learning shows such as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Elmo’s World, and Sesame Street, which has since found a new home on Netflix.
According to the lawyers, those laws also cover “attempting to defund PBS.”
“The executive order makes no attempt to hide the fact that it is cutting off the flow of funds to PBS because of the content of PBS programming and out of a desire to alter the content of speech,” the complaint read. “That is blatant viewpoint discrimination.”
NYT reported that around 16 percent of PBS’ $373.4 million annual budget comes in the form of grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The nonprofit organization spends over $500 million annually on public media and receives its funding from Congress.
According to PBS lawyers, Trump’s executive cut would destabilize around 61 percent of the budget it receives from local station dues for its programming.
PBS CEO Paula Kerger called Trump’s order “blatantly unlawful.”
In a statement, PBS News reported that a spokesman for the broadcaster said it was “necessary to take legal action to safeguard public television’s editorial independence, and to protect the autonomy of PBS member stations.”
Similarly, NPR also sued this week to block Trump’s executive order, NYT reported.
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