Wednesday’s CBS Mornings showcased a genetic screening company that allows parents to select which embryo they would like to in-vitro fertilize. Co-host Tony Dokoupil interviewed founder and CEO of Nucleus Genomics Kian Sadeghi, who denied comparisons to the eugenics movement. The story surrounded the company’s IVF+ screening service, which would scan for over 2,000 traits and conditions at the tune of $30k. The goal was for parents to be able to select out of 20 viable options which embryo they believed held the best genetic specifications. Dokoupil and Sadeghi listed the traits the screening was capable of revealing, including height, hair color, eye color, intelligence, and diseases such as depression, bipolar disorder and autism. The 25-year-old founder, who had no children of his own, stated: “Life, I think, as a parent, doesn’t just stop at, ‘I want my child to be healthy.’” Dokoupil asked Sadeghi straight-up why his company should not be associated with the 20th century practice: DOKOUPIL: Genetic optimization is not eugenics, because? SADEGHI: By any stretch. Because it’s fundamentally about empowering people with information that they can use to give their child the best start in life. Yes, if you want two inches taller for your child, three inches taller, right? If you want a couple I.Q. point difference, absolutely, by all means, do that. But I’m saying — you’re really asking me here, you’re asking me, what is life about? That’s actually what you’re trying to get at. When you talk about height and I.Q., right? They’re abstractions of life. They were extraneous specifications that were being put on display like at a farmer’s market. That’s empowering prejudice, just like the eugenics of century-past. Dokoupil asked the CEO about the company’s highly questionable ad campaign (Click “Expand”): DOKOUPIL: You use the term your best baby. SADEGHI: Whatever that means to you. DOKOUPIL: Right. But no one is going to sit there and choose, I want a short, acne-prone, anxiety-ridden person with bad eyesight and no ability in sports. SADEGHI: Well, similarly today, people are going to say, “Hey, I don’t want a baby with cystic fibrosis. I don’t want a baby with down syndrome.” And in the same way, that’s their choice. Nobody (in their right mind) would want their child to suffer from a handicap.     The segment mentioned stances made by MIT Technology Review and the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics that condemned the new science trend. Sadeghi offered a somewhat self-contradicting defense of his company’s enterprise: “Because DNA is not destiny, the messiness of life, the nurture element of life, right? How hard your child works, you know? What school they go to, what resources they have, serendipity — all those factors are never, ever going to go away. People forget that. They want to extract on life just to this genetic material. That’s the beginning of life. That DNA is not life. DNA is the beginning of life.” DNA is the building block for biological life, which could have unavoidable effects on one’s future. But choosing who would get to live in the first place would completely rig the game for “desirable” specimens, refusing a chance for those who weren’t. Of course, co-host Gayle King couldn’t find the glaring moral issue with the process: DOKOUPIL: He also clarified that he thinks genetic optimization, his term, is not the same as eugenics because his patients are going into this willingly and voluntarily, big difference from the things from history. KING: Yeah, I think that that’s a very important distinction. But as a parent, why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of something that allows you to minimize disease? I’m struggling to find out the downside here, especially if it’s a voluntary thing too. After dumbly suggesting that a “genetic inequality” caused by the very high price tag could be the issue, Dopoukil came around to pondering over the actual problem: “I also wrestle with that question. I guess what I come down — I don’t know what you’re throwing out when you select A and not B.” Thank you, Tony. At least someone saw the obvious. For more, read about NBC’s coverage of a similar company back in October. The transcript is below. Click "expand" read: CBS Mornings 12/03/25 7:00:52 a.m. [TEASE] 10 seconds [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: “Designer Babies”] TONY DOKOUPIL: We meet the head of a company that helps parents pick their own super babies, and discuss the ethical concerns. KIAN SADEGHI: You want two inches taller for your child. Three inches taller, right? If you want a couple I.Q. point difference. (....) 7:19:45 a.m. [TEASE] 9 seconds [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Ahead; “Designer Babies”] VLADIMIR DUTHIERS: Still ahead this morning, a company says it now has the technology to let parents optimize their future kid’s genetic traits. Tony spoke to the CEO. (....) 7:25:38 a.m. [TEASE] 32 seconds [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Coming Up; Designing the Perfect Baby?] DOKOUPIL: Speaking of resourceful, coming up, a company says it is giving parents the resources that they would need to have a window into their child’s future, picking hair color, eye color, measuring intelligence, different ranges, even things like anxiety or the likelihood they’ll have a substance abuse disorder. It’s not science fiction, not anymore. It’s very real, according to a founder of a company that’s offering all this and much, much more. This is happening right now. We’re gonna get into all of it with the founder and CEO of Nucleus Genomics. Stay with us. (....) 7:32:49 a.m. [TEASE] 13 seconds [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Up Next; Designing the Perfect Baby?] NATE BURLESON: Up next, one company says it’s making it possible for parents to look into the genetic future of their potential babies. Tony talked with its founder and CEO about this controversial technology. You’ve gotta stick around for this. (....) 7:37:17 a.m. 7 minutes and 55 seconds [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Designing Your Baby?] DOKOUPIL: Big leaps in science have made a once impossible, unthinkable question suddenly very real. Would you design your future child? CEO Kian Sadeghi said he believes every parent has a right to do exactly that, selecting the qualities they most desire, from height to weight to intelligence. He calls it genetic optimization, and it’s part of what’s been called the Silicon Valley push to breed super babies. Companies, including Sadeghi’s own Nucleus Genomics, say DNA screening of embryos can prevent disease while also giving parents the god-like ability to pick the baby of their particular dreams. So would you do it? We sat down with the 25-year-old founder to talk through it all. SADEGHI: We give you the full range of insight there is to know about your future child. We really think it’s the parents right to know. [ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Company Lets Parents Pick Future Baby’s Traits] DOKOUPIL: Meet Kian Sadeghi, the founder of Nucleus Genomics. It’s a company that can deliver not just a healthier child, he says, but in the eyes of mom and dad, a more desirable child, too. SADEGHI: They want us to, you know, play sports and they want us to go to the best school. They want us to be well educated. They want us to thrive. Life, I think, as a parent, doesn’t just stop at, “I want my child to be healthy.” DOKOUPIL: Which is why, at this sprawling facility in Central New Jersey — [TO SADEGHI] How much lab space do you have here? SADEGHI: Oh, it’s huge. DOKOUPIL: The company screens embryo samples for more than 2,000 traits and conditions as they call them, meaning a lot that’s disease or illness, and a lot that’s debatable. SADEGHI: We look at something like height, even eye color, hair color. DOKOUPIL [TO SADEGHI]: Intelligence? SADEGHI: Intelligence. We give you — DOKOUPIL [TO SADEGHI]: Acne? SADEGHI: — acne, yeah. DOKOUPIL: For $30,000.00, Nucleus offers a program called IVF+, which includes full DNA scans of both parents and up to 20 embryos conceived through in-vitro fertilization. SADEGHI: And then you can actually do the compare. DOKOUPIL: Okay. SADEGHI: You can very easily compare them. Okay? DOKOUPIL [TO SADEGHI]: I’m super interested. — The results come back in the form of a sleek, user friendly menu. [TO SADEGHI] Depression, bipolar, autism. Wow! SADEGHI: Autism, yeah. DOKOUPIL: Allowing parents to minimize disease, according to Sadeghi, while maximizing the traits they’d prefer. SADEGHI: You can see here that this embryo is particularly about an inch taller than typical. DOKOUPIL: Shopping in effect among potential future children before picking the one they want to implant. [TO SADEGHI] You use the term genetic optimization. SADEGHI: Yeah. DOKOUPIL [TO SADEGHI]: I know other people would say eugenics, right? I knew you’d have a reaction to that word. — Eugenics is a 19th century idea used to justify some of the 20th century’s darkest chapters, all in pursuit of supposedly superior genes. [TO SADEGHI] Genetic optimization is not eugenics, because? SADEGHI: By any stretch. Because it’s fundamentally about empowering people with information that they can use to give their child the best start in life. Yes, if you want two inches taller for your child, three inches taller, right? If you want a couple I.Q. point difference, absolutely, by all means, do that. But I’m saying — you’re really asking me here, you’re asking me, what is life about? That’s actually what you’re trying to get at. When you talk about height and I.Q., right? They’re abstractions of life. DOKOUPIL: Sadeghi’s life as an entrepreneur started back in 2021 when he dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania to launch Nucleus, inspired, he says, by a cousin who died of a rare genetic illness. SADEGHI: That’s why today I’m excited to announce IVF+. DOKOUPIL: Backed by investors like billionaire Peter Thiel and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian, Sadeghi says his company has already helped thousands of families. SADEGHI: You can run 128 samples on this at a time. DOKOUPIL: But even as the company grows with a splashy new ad campaign inviting parents to, “Have your best baby,” the field of reproductive genetics itself is “an ethical mess,” according to the MIT Technology Review. And in a statement last year, the American College of Medical Genetics and Genomics determined companies like Nucleus were moving too fast with too little evidence. [TO SADEGHI] So you feel confident in these predictions? SADEGHI: Oh, absolutely. Our predictors can better predict longevity from the embryo’s DNA than any other genetic model ever built. DOKOUPIL [TO SADEGHI]: You use the term your best baby. SADEGHI: Whatever that means to you. DOKOUPIL [TO SADEGHI]: Right. But no one is going to sit there and choose, I want a short, acne-prone, anxiety-ridden person with bad eyesight and no ability in sports. SADEGHI: Well, similarly today, people are going to say, “Hey, I don’t want a baby with cystic fibrosis. I don’t want a baby with down syndrome.” And in the same way, that’s their choice. DOKOUPIL: Whether you agree, Sadeghi says the growth of his company does not mean the dawn of a new class of super humans. SADEGHI: Because DNA is not destiny, the messiness of life, the nurture element of life, right? How hard your child works, you know? What school they go to, what resources they have, serendipity — all those factors are never, ever going to go away. People forget that. They want to extract on life just to this genetic material. That’s the beginning of life. That DNA is not life. DNA is the beginning of life. DOKOUPIL: I also asked Sadeghi if there are any genetic traits at all that he’d be uncomfortable testing for, and he said that Nucleus would provide full insights, openly and proudly, for anything that the science would support. He also clarified that he thinks genetic optimization, his term, is not the same as eugenics because his patients are going into this willingly and voluntarily, big difference from the things from history. GAYLE KING: Yeah, I think that that’s a very important distinction. But as a parent, why wouldn’t you want to take advantage of something that allows you to minimize disease? I’m struggling to find out the downside here, especially if it’s a voluntary thing too. DOKOUPIL: It’s voluntary. There’s a huge amount of potential good in disease reduction. You are contributing to a kind of genetic inequality, if only some of the population can afford to do this, and everyone else is just out there in the wilds of the past. BURLESON: Right. DOKOUPIL: So that might be a concern. KING: The price is $30,000.00. DOKOUPIL: 30K, but that includes the IVF as well. But I also wrestle with that question. I guess what I come down — I don’t know what you’re throwing out when you select A and not B. BURLESON: Right. DOKOUPIL: For example — KING: But I know what I’m getting, though. I may be throwing — BURLESON: But you know what you’re getting. KING: — but I know what I am getting. DOKOUPIL: But like Kian himself in the conversation, he told me he is four inches shorter than his brother. Imagine if Kian’s own parents had access to his technology. KING: Well, he might not be here. DOKOUPIL: He may not be the — so you don’t know what you’re getting at. BURLESON: It might be Leon that he has [inaudible] Kian. DOKOUPIL: Exactly. KING: Yeah. DOKOUPIL: Right. So there’s a lot of nuance here. BURLESON: You know, I — KING: Does he have any children? DOKOUPIL: No, not yet. He’s only 25. KING: Okay. DOKOUPIL: And I love that he was open to each and every question, and we got a fuller interview we’re going to publish online. KING: Oh, I thought that [inaudible] but it was very good. BURLESON: See, you know, I have to be realistic with myself having three healthy kids, and I’m blessed and thankful for that. It’s easy for me to have more questions about this, right? But on the flip side, what if I was a parent who struggled to raise kids for whatever range of — DOKOUPIL: Yeah. BURLESON: — reasons, maybe they are looking at this differently, saying, “If I could do it over again” — KING: Yeah. BURLESON: — “because of whatever struggles I am or my kids are dealing with, maybe I would choose the best possible outcome,” — DOKOUPIL: Yeah. BURLESON: — which is optimizing, like he said. DOKOUPIL: Yeah. KING: If I had some babies here, it doesn’t matter, you will do whatever it takes, whether the baby is perfectly born or not, you will do whatever it takes. And I’ve heard many families say — DOKOUPIL: Yeah. KING: — that it turned out to be a blessing. DOKOUPIL: Yeah. KING: But have any babies been born using that method, has it turned out the way that he said? DOKOUPIL: Babies have been born, but the technology is only a few years old, so we don’t have like 25 years of data looking back. BURLESON: And for clarification, it is not modification — DOKOUPIL: Nope. BURLESON: — of DNA. DOKOUPIL: Just picking your best out of the available things. He calls it generational health, like generational wealth. BURLESON: I need more of this, Tony. I need you to get out there. I need more interviews. DOKOUPIL: I’ll do it. KING: Kian’s phone is going to be ringing off the hook. BURLESON: All right — DOKOUPIL: Yeah.

Will he write a book about getting this one wrong too? CNN host made a fool out himself again Thursday evening. He kicked off The Lead by falsely claiming that the suspect arrested for planning pipe bombs outside of the Democratic and Republican National Committees national offices ahead of January 6, was a “white man,” when he was, in fact, black. He also refused to correct the record even as he was noting they were showing images of the guy on screen. “After nearly five years of investigation, the FBI finally announced that they had arrested a suspect, a suspect accused of planting pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack,” he announced as he came on the air. Then came the ridiculousness: Brian Cole Jr., a 30-year-old white man from the D.C. suburbs is charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and with malicious destruction by means of explosions.   Clown News Network: Jake Tapper claims black pipe bomb suspect is a "white man." He refuses to correct the record even after noting they're sharing images of the guy. Will he write a book about getting this wrong too? pic.twitter.com/SfRVgbJAFb — Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) December 5, 2025   A few minutes later, as correspondent Brian Todd was recounting how “One neighbor said he would never make eye contact with you” and wear red Crocs in the snow, imagines of the suspect took over the screen. “And we do have new photographs, as you saw during that presentation from Brian, new photographs of the suspect, and we're showing those to you right now,” Tapper noted as he left Todd and pivoted to his panel. At no point did Tapper issue a correction to his false claim. Interestingly, Tapper’s former CNN colleague turned NewsNation host Chris Cuomo seemed to take a swipe at Tapper on X. Cuomo quote tweeted a New York Post article about Tapper blunder and commented: “Old habits.”   Old habits. https://t.co/yZ6nAGGgvY — Christopher C. Cuomo (@ChrisCuomo) December 5, 2025   Tapper has a nasty habit of getting simple facts wrong. In addition to his infamous book where he tried to wash his hands of taking part in the cover up of President Biden’s cognitive decline, Tapper had seemingly lied under oath during his deposition testimony for the defamation suit CNN lost earlier this year. As NewsBusters previously reported, Tapper couldn’t remember his title at CNN nor what his rating were because, according to him, “I do not pay attention to ratings.” People quickly dug into Tapper’s past tweets where he most definitely was touting his ratings. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN’s The Lead December 4, 2025 5:01:31 p.m. Eastern JAKE TAPPER: Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. After nearly five years of investigation, the FBI finally announced that they had arrested a suspect, a suspect accused of planting pipe bombs near the Republican and Democratic National Committee headquarters the night before the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack. Brian Cole Jr., a 30-year-old white man from the D.C. suburbs is charged with transporting an explosive device in interstate commerce and with malicious destruction by means of explosions. CNN observed local and federal law enforcement outside his home in Woodbridge, Virginia this morning. Attorney General Pam Bondi gave very few details about the suspect this morning, but said this cold case has been solved. (…) BRIAN TODD: Also talking to neighbors about their previous interactions with the suspect, identified as Brian Cole Jr. They said they often saw him out in the neighborhood walking his Chihuahua. But he was a very reclusive figure, never really interacted with people, almost was antisocial in the words of one neighbor. They described him walking his Chihuahua for long walks frequently several times a day, sometimes even at maybe two in the morning. One neighbor said he would never make eye contact with you. He would always wear headphones. Never speak to you except to say hello. One neighbor had kind of a quirky account of him saying that what struck him, what stood out to him about the suspect was that even in the deadest of winter, in the coldest days, he'd be out in his shorts with red Crocs walking his dog. But a very reclusive figure is the picture we're getting of the suspect, even though he came from a family that a neighbor said was fairly friendly. Jake. TAPPER: All right, Brian Todd in Woodridge, Virginia, thanks. And we do have new photographs, as you saw during that presentation from Brian, new photographs of the suspect, and we're showing those to you right now. (…)

This week, the major broadcast networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC have dedicated a stunning 22 minutes and 21 seconds to President Trump’s comments repeatedly slamming the Somali community in Minnesota as “garbage” and having “ripped off that state,” but only about 28 percent (or 27.7 percent) mentioned Trump’s remarks were in relation to a years-long welfare fraud scheme in Democrat-run Minnesota carried out by dozens of Somalis. Put another way, only six minutes and 12 seconds were dedicated on the flagship network morning, evening, and Sunday political talk show newscasts to explaining why President Trump was sounding off on Somalis in Minnesota ahead of expected operations by Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE). The scheme first resulted in indictments back in September 2022 and a New York Times story ran on Saturday about its fallout, but it took until Sunday’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press for anyone to bring it up. ABC News showed the strongest desire to engage in a disinformation campaign against the President and paint his comments as racist smears out of the blue. Only seven percent (6.9) of ABC’s coverage highlighted the context of Somalis being in the headlines, which broke down to a scant 25 seconds out of their six minutes and two seconds of overall coverage. Their first mention on the December 2 World News Tonight was devoid of any context. Anchor David Muir asked chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce to elaborate on “President Trump lashing out at immigrants from Somalia. saying ‘I don't want them in our country.’” Bruce continued to provide no context other than to say Trump was “increasingly going after Somali immigrants and now sources tell us that ICE is preparing for a surge operation in Minneapolis.”  ABC engaged in this same spin cycle on December 3’s Good Morning America courtesy of co-host Robin Roberts and senior political correspondent Rachel Scott. The latter told viewers Trump was attacking Somalis simply because “does not want them in our country.” The lone 25 seconds of honesty came hours later on World News Tonight during Bruce’s report on the ICE raids: ABOUT TIME: After lying for three newscasts, ABC News finally admitted on Wednesday’s ‘World News Tonight’ there actually WAS context to President Trump ripping Somalis as “garbage” and it was related to the welfare fraud scheme in Minnesota@MaryKBruce was sent to walk the… pic.twitter.com/o79kWdOZXI — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 4, 2025   NBC was next with 24 percent (23.8) of its Somali/Minnesota coverage — or two minutes and 10 seconds — covering the welfare fraud that cost the state over $1 billion. Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker had 59 seconds questioning Governor Tim Walz (D-MN) about why the fraud took place on such a massive scale while senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez had a 10-second nod on the December 2 Nightly News and correspondent Maggie Vespa made up remaining 71 seconds over two reports on the December 3 Nightly News and December 4 Today. Otherwise, chief White House correspondent Peter Alexander helped perpetuate on December 3’s Today the perception of Trump suddenly trashing Somalis from left field, calling it a “presidential tirade” during a Cabinet meeting. CBS’s newscasts of CBS Mornings and the CBS Evening News represented genuine balance with over 50 percent (50.1) of its seven minutes and 13 seconds of Somali coverage explaining the backstory, which worked out to three minutes and 37 seconds. That balance came thanks to CBS turning to Jonah Kaplan from their Minnesota affiliate WCCO for the December 3 CBS Evening News and December 4 CBS Mornings. Here was report on the former that, while he gave room for Somalis to fret they were unfairly targeted, he started with the fact that the state was “reeling from a fraud scandal involving $1 billion siphoned from multiple federal programs during the COVID pandemic” with “87 people have been charged, 61 convicted, most of Somali descent”: It took *three* news cycles for the CBS Evening News to do anything more than one single sentence on *why* President Trump has been teeing off on Somalis in Minnesota Of course, Wednesday's segment included a Somali on Minneapolis's city council excusing the fraud ring b/c… pic.twitter.com/iuykw3lW0U — Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 4, 2025   “According to investigators, the schemes involved bogus receipts and invoices for meal programs, housing assistance and behavioral health services, charging the state millions for services that were never provided,” he added. He also ended with an emphasis on the Somalis playing Minnesota’s welfare system for suckers: “[T]he fraudsters allegedly stole the money and kept it for themselves and spent it on things like cars, houses, diamonds, and so much more.” If anything, this exercise illustrated a news story where the Bari Weiss-led CBS News accomplished her desired goal of presenting the news accurately and fairly and fulfilling her core tenets of journalism she laid out when she took the helm of editor-in-chief on October 6. For the others, this represented more of the same and a Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS) that showed no signs of slowing down, facts be damned.

Hopes that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates when it meets next week were bolstered Friday when the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released a key inflation measure that came in better than analysts had expected. The BEA report for September, which had been delayed by the federal government shutdown, shows that the personal consumption expenditure (PCE) price index increased 0.3% from August. From the same month one year ago, the PCE price index for September increased 2.8%. More importantly, the Fed-favored “core” PCE price index, which excludes the volatile food and energy components, rose 2.8% over the past 12 month. Market analysts had expected a 2.9% matching August’s increase from July. The core PCE price index increased 0.2% in September, compared to a month earlier. “The slightly stale September inflation report shows that prices remained reasonably stable despite tariffs and healthy consumer spending. This probably provides further air cover for the Fed to cut rates in December,” Global X’s head of investment strategy. Scott Helfstein, told CNBC. The PCE price index, released each month in the Personal Income and Outlays report, reflects changes in the prices of goods and services purchased by consumers in the United States. Quarterly and annual data are included in the GDP release. Personal income and outlays data for the months of July, August, and September 2025 will be updated with the initial estimate of Gross Domestic Product for the third quarter of 2025 on December 23, 2025.

The judge who presided over Thursday’s hearing regarding a National Public Radio (NPR) lawsuit against the Trump administration is skeptical of President Trump's executive order ending funding for public media – and could strike it down without a trial, NPR reported Friday. Since the start of his second term in the White House, a host of activist judges have intervened to block Pres. Trump’s Constitutional authorities to implement his America First agenda. In its article, NPR reported that Judge Randolph D. Moss is a “skeptical judge” who criticized the executive order’s premise during Thursday's summary judgement hearing: “A skeptical judge “The presiding U.S. district court judge, Randolph D. Moss, seemed skeptical. ‘You'd be on much firmer ground if the president had simply said, 'We just want to get out of the news business.’” After hearing arguments from both sides on Thursday, Judge Moss can now either rule in favor of the Trump administration, grant a judgement in favor of NPR, or order that a trial be held to decide the lawsuit. In May, Trump issued the executive order titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidy of Biased Media.” In it, he called for an end to all taxpayer funding of news media, prompting NPR’s lawsuit. NPR argues that the First Amendment gives it the right to be biased, while Trump attorneys contend that the president also wants to defund all taxpayer-funded media, regardless of content. As further evidence that Judge Moss sides with NPR, the article notes that he proposed a deal Thursday to Justice Department lawyers that could permanently ensure NPR receives taxpayer funding. In a previous case involving the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), Judge Moss criticized termination of a contract providing $36 million to NPR (“Judge Moss had explicitly told the CPB's lawyers that he did not find their defenses for the reversal credible.”). Under the settlement reached, NPR was awarded the full amount of the contract. On Thursday, Judge Moss suggested that the settlement be expanded to permanently restrict the federal government: “Government deflects judge's suggestion “The judge also appeared to offer the government a way out for a major part of the case, dangling the prospect that it might enable him to avoid ruling that Trump's executive order was illegal. “Moss suggested that the U.S. government could formally agree that the CPB settlement with NPR was binding on the federal government too — that it would never seek to prevent CPB from sending money to the radio network if federal subsidies were to be somehow restored.” The Justice Department’s lawyers rejected Judge Moss's proposal, so both sides now await impending Judge Moss's ruling.