GOP torches NPR, PBS for political bias amid public funding scrutiny

On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee’s Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency grilled the heads of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service about the outlets’ political bias.

During the hearing, Republican lawmakers contended that NPR and PBS should no longer receive taxpayer funding for several reasons, highlighting the networks’ partisan reporting, the nation’s $36 trillion of debt, and the public’s access to plentiful alternative news sources, eliminating the need for government-backed options.

‘How much reparations have you personally paid?’

NPR president and CEO Katherine Maher came under fire for leftist comments she previously made online, including calling President Donald Trump a “deranged racist” and “sociopath.”

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the subcommittee’s chairwoman, told Maher, “You posted on X that ‘America is addicted to white supremacy’ — that’s appalling. You publicly chastised using the phrases ‘boy and girl,’ which you said ‘erases the language for nonbinary people.'”

Greene reminded Maher that taxpayers who voted for Trump also contributed to the federal funds NPR receives.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas) also came prepared with receipts of Maher’s far-left comments.

“Do you think that white people should pay reparations?” Gill asked.

“I have never said that, sir,” Maher replied.

“Yes, you did. You said it in January of 2020. You tweeted, ‘Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day,'” Gill continued.

Maher argued that it was not a reference to financial reparations.

“I think it was just a reference to the idea that we all owe much to the people who came before us,” she stated.

“That’s a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted,” Gill replied. “How much reparations have you personally paid?”

Maher stated she had not paid any.

“Okay. Just for everybody else?” Gills asked. “Seems to be what you’re suggesting.”

At one point during the hearing, Maher expressed “regret” for her comments about Trump.

“I would not tweet them again today. They represented a time where I was reflecting on something that I believed that the president had said rather than who he is. I don’t presume that anyone is a racist,” Maher stated.

Meanwhile, Democrats’ counter-argument strategy primarily included accusing Republicans of attacking free speech and “Sesame Street.”

Several subcommittee Democrats appeared less interested in participating earnestly in the hearing, instead launching into absurd and irrelevant lines of questioning about Elmo and Big Bird.

Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) kicked off his opening statement by accusing the subcommittee of becoming politicized. He used most of his allotted time to attack the Trump administration about the recent Signal group chat leak.

“I’m sad to see that this once-proud committee … has now stooped to the lowest levels of partisanship and political theater to hold a hearing to go after the likes of Elmo, Cookie Monster, and Arthur the Aardvark. All for the unforgivable sin of teaching the alphabet to low-income families’ children and providing accessible local news and programming,” Lynch stated.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) fired off an extraneous line of questioning, arguing that the public funding hearing was not “serious.”

Garcia asked PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger, “The American people want to know, is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party of the United States?”

Rep. Gregorio Casar (D-Texas) engaged in similar antics, asking Heritage Foundation senior fellow Michael Gonzalez about “Sesame Street” characters.

“To your knowledge, has Miss Piggy ever been caught trying to funnel billions of dollars in government contracts to herself?” Casar asked.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) argued that pulling taxpayer funding from NPR and PBS would threaten free speech and the safety of rural Americans.

She claimed that Republican lawmakers “don’t care about public safety, they don’t care about emergency management, and they don’t care about free speech.”

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) argued that Democratic lawmakers have “viciously and vehemently” supported the funding for NPR and PBS because the outlets have “become a propaganda wing” for the party.