President Trump signed an executive order on Thursday to slash funding for PBS, National Public Radio, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and America’s Public Television Stations. NJ Spotlight News is the news desk of NJ PBS and a grantee of CPB.

Trump took to social media to defend the decision, calling on Republicans to defund NPR and PBS and calling them “the radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country.”

The legality of the executive order is uncertain, with leaders of each entity maintaining Congress appropriates that funding which flows through the CPB to the public media networks. Congress has allocated those funds through September of 2027.

“CPB is not a federal executive agency subject to the President’s authority,” the corporation wrote in a statement. “Congress directly authorized and funded CPB to be a private nonprofit corporation wholly independent of the federal government.”

“The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” added PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger in a statement. “We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans.”

The leaders from all four entities have vowed to challenge the order. The CPB was already suing the Trump administration for attempting to fire three out of five of its board members.