Washington DC - President Donald Trump on Thursday reversed course and restored funding to Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty after a federal judge temporarily blocked his attempted shut down.

This week's temporary restraining order stopped Trump from administering cuts until at least March 28, on the basis that RFE/RL cannot be shut down by the executive without a ruling by Congress.

Trump also reinstated employees at the Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), a news outlet directed at Cuba which criticizes its communist government and spreads US political messages.

In a letter submitted to the court, the Trump administration announced it was restoring funding for RFE/RL. The filing argued that the defendant's position in the lawsuit "is now moot" because the parties suing had received the "relief" that they were requesting.

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In a press release, RFE/RL said that its grant agreement for 2025 had been reinstated and called the US Agency for Global Media's actions "unlawful."

"This is an encouraging sign that RFE/RL’s operations will be able to continue, as Congress intended," RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus was cited as saying in the release. "We await confirmation."

"This is not the time for RFE/RL to go silent. Millions of people rely on us for factual information in places where censorship is widespread. We must not cede ground to our adversaries at a time when threats to America are on the rise."

Trump and his far-right billionaire ally, Elon Musk, have sown chaos with their aggressive campaign to dismantle the administrative state, including government agencies and programs that tens of millions of people rely on.