President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday to end public funding of National Public Radio and PBS to stop what he called "biased and partisan news coverage." The order directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to "cease federal funding for NPR and PBS" to the extent allowed by law. The order could be challenged in court. The White House said in a Friday statement that both organizations had received "tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds each year to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.'"

President Trump signed a late-night executive order Thursday that would strip funds from NPR and PBS — further escalating his war on public broadcasters and the media as a whole. “No media outlet has a constitutional right to taxpayer subsidies, and the Government is entitled to determine which categories of activities to subsidize,” Trump wrote in the order, instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to cease indirect and direct federal funding for the two outlets. The president has accused both organizations of projecting biased viewpoints to the public. “Which viewpoints NPR and PBS promote does not matter. What does matter is that neither entity presents a fair, accurate, or unbiased portrayal of current events to tax paying citizens,” he wrote in the order.

The order states that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the umbrella organization that oversees government funding for PBS and NPR, “cancel existing direct funding to the maximum extent allowed by law and shall decline to provide future funding.” Officials at the corporation, PBS and NPR didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment. Trump’s efforts to shut down funding for public broadcasting are the latest of several battles with the media. Last December, Disney’s ABC News settled a defamation suit filed by Trump against the network and anchor George Stephanopoulos by agreeing to contribute $15 million to his presidential foundation or museum.