If you have been seeing this Trump CPB Board Removals lawsuit in the headlines lately and the overall details sound too technical and complex, then you may not know the fact that it is more about the Trump administration trying to remove the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s board members because they oversee the funding of some news outlets out there. That might have piqued your interest a little, and that may be because you think it is against the freedom of speech rights, but yeah, a lot of people already think that way. So let’s get to the details and try to make sense of things here.
What Exactly Is the CPB?
The CPB or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, isn’t a TV or radio channel. It is an entity formed in 1967 whose main purpose was to handle federal funding for public media. These funds are given as grants to local NPR and PBS stations all over the United States.
The CPB works as an intermediary between the public and the government. Its mission is to promote public broadcasting while it remains free from political interference. This is why board members’ terms are for six years. The intention is to stop any one president from having full control of the board all at once.
The issue of this independence became heated when TRUMP tried to oust members of the board who were appointed during the Biden administration.
Why Did Trump Issue a New Executive Order in 2025?
To be precise, here with the details, well, Trump signed Executive Order 14290 in May 2025. And in the simplest words possible, this order was nothing but to target or aimed at mainly cutting or straight up ending the government funds for media outlets that are, according to his administration, are biased and spread fake news, and we’re talking about news outlets like NPR and PBS here.
In action, like how things worked with this order, well, it kinda required government agencies and CPB to cease funding and to cancel any payments due. And because, as many of you may already know that CPB’s primary function is to distribute these funds, so yeah, pretty much the order instantly led to confusion and raised legal issues.
Why Did Trump Try to Remove CPB Board Members?
It is very much the continuation of this legal matter that just in April 2025, the Trump administration sent specific letters to actually remove three CPB board members. Why? Well, the reasoning was given that they were Biden appointees.
But you might be thinking like can’t he, the President, just do that? Well, yes, that’s the issue; the law clearly says that a president does not have the power to remove CPB board members at will. And the reason for that is pretty simple too, like, the CPB is set up as an independent nonprofit rather than a regular government agency.
So sure enough, upon receiving those letters, CPB took the matter to court, and that’s when this lawsuit came to be.
What Did the Court Decide in 2025?
By mid-June 2025, there was a court verdict made, and to be specific about that, well, that’s when federal judge Randolph Moss examined the matter. He kinda straight up rejected the application for a stay of removal of the board members.
Judge Moss believed the CBP had not provided sufficient proof of immediate harm and that was the big reason for such an action. Besides that, he mentioned that the CBP had already changed its governance rules, stipulating that in the future, a two-thirds board vote would be required to remove members.
But yeah, that just doesn’t mean that the Trump administration was the clear winner here, nah, in actuality, it only says that there are more steps that need to be taken in order to remove a CBP board member.
Did the Trump Administration Take the Case Further?
Most certainly. It was in July 2025 that the Trump administration brought the matter to the court once again. This time, their submission was a request for the court to make an official determination that the three board members, Laura Ross, Diane Kaplan, and Tom Rothman, did not have any legal rights to their positions.
The administration maintained that the president has the power to remove those he has appointed, just as he can with cabinet officers. CPB, however, stated that their setup was geared towards being politically independent and they couldn’t be controlled by the president.
The lawsuit even sought the panel members to reimburse the salaries that they had received after the removal was attempted.
What Else Was Happening at the Same Time?
Meanwhile, NPR and PBS took their own legal action as well. So far, they’re saying that this entire act of the administration is against free speech rights because they’re cutting or ending their funding to just show or air news, which is more like a punishment.
Besides that, the Trump administration was keen on getting Congress to revoke more than a billion dollars of CPB funds that had already been approved through the Rescissions Act of 2025. So yeah, overall, if you are following up with things, it was a broader action by the current government.
