On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) held a hearing featuring the CEOs of National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS amid a new push to achieve a decades-old effort to defund the far-left propaganda outlets that annually see hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars.
With their federal dollars on the line, NPR’s Katherine Maher and PBS’s Paula Kerger refused to admit to the error of their ways, cartoonishly insisting their outlets deliver “essential,” “fact-based,” “non-partisan,” “trusted,” and “unbiased” reporting.
Committee Democrats rallied to their defense with Chicken Little claims about the lives of rural Americans somehow having no access to vital information, no local news, and a GOP that’s out to engage in “bullshit…to shutdown everybody that is not Fox News.”
Republicans came prepared with the facts about broadband internet, an endless menu of outlets Americans lacked in the past, hard-hitting examples of anti-American propaganda on NPR and PBS, and even NewsBusters research.
Let’s walk through the highlights and lowlights from the nearly two-hour-and-26-minute hearing.
Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) led off with an opening statement many of these themes, starting with the archaic view of the news landscape:
Thus, she explained, “NPR and PBS have increasingly become radical left-wing echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy white, urban liberals and progressives who generally looked down on and judge rural America.”
In PBS’s case, she cited two disturbing examples that openly advocated and glorified transgenderism and then how they too falsely claimed Elon Musk did a Nazi salute on Inauguration Day.
Ranking Member Stephen Lynch (D-MA) had other ideas, falsely claiming the GOP held the hearing to distract from Signal-gate and were targeting “the likes of Elmo and Cookie Monster and Arthur the Aardvark.”
Maher’s opening statement was comical from the start:
Along with insisting they’re great stewards of tax dollars, she spoke glowingly of their ethics and respect for all Americans:
As for Kerger, she too struck a weirdly romantic tone, suggesting they’re the one network looking out for the American people:
Our friends from the Heritage Foundation had Mike Gonzalez also on hand to testify, which he credited the work of our own Tim Graham:
Greene kicked off the Q&A by calling Maher on the carpet over her history of divisive, radical comments and that she’s supposed to work for all Americans, not hate half of them:
Maher’s response? She had the gall to claim she’s “a very strong believer in free speech” and believes in “more speech.”
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) picked up on Greene’s two points about NPR being far less valuable than it used to be and that its alleged journalism is disinformation to the point it meddles in elections:
Following a ridiculous bit of chicanery by Congressman Robert Garcia (D-CA), Congressman Michael Cloud (R-TX) blasted Maher’s “lack of reverence for truth” and NPR’s failure on major news stories in the last five years:
On this, Maher claimed her past comments about censorship were “really referencing the way that people use truth to refer to belief as opposed to facts, and my encouragement was that we focus on the facts.”
The word “focus” wouldn’t befit whatever this was from Texas Democrats Greg Casar and the new, unofficial face of the party, Jasmine Crockett.
In the latter’s case, she dropped the expletive and, in her newfound rhetoric from the ‘hood, she falsely claimed those wanting to defund NPR and PBS don’t care about “the safety of the American people”:
Congressman Jim Jordan (R-OH) brought the hearing back to reality, asking Maher if NPR is “biased,” to which she laughably said she had “never seen any instance of political bias determining editorial decisions” and that “I do not believe we are politically biased” and instead “a nonpartisan organization.”
Jordan also methodically exposed the racket that is the wider agency, Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB):
After Congresswoman Emily Randall (D-WA) defended NPR and PBS because rural areas like northern Washington state depend on them because they lack high-speed internet, Congressman Tim Burchett (R-TN) exposed PBS and the left for still using Sesame Street as a crutch:
He then grilled Maher about her progressive ideology and how one NPR affiliate in New York state railed against God Bless America:
Burchett’s GOP colleague Pat Fallon (TX) was loaded for bear, first drawing these claims out from Maher (and then Kerger to concur https://x.com/CurtisHouck/status/1904934481112293587):
Fallon then cited two NewsBusters studies from our Clay Waters on the rancorous bias at PBS on labeling “far-left” vs. “far-right” and then last year comparing the two party conventions:
Moments after Maher admitted to Fallon that NPR journalists “work to be” fair “every day,” Fallon closed with a rousing rant outlining the reason the left defends funding NPR and PBS as well as the only sort of ideological diversity they actually support:
Congressman Brendan Gill’s (R-TX) five minutes were nothing short of a masterclass in asking questions, taking the same approach Fox’s Peter Doocy has perfected in the White House Briefing Room.
In the first half, Gill confronted Maher on a slew of past statements, all of which Maher acted surprised and even denied she said on issues like Marxism, reparations, and white privilege. Thankfully, Gill informed her she did, in fact, say them in tweets:
Part two consisted of content aired and published by NPR, ranging from defending looting to “queer dinosaur enthusiasts” to glorifying obesity to civility being racist:
Speaking of effective questioning, Congressman Brian Jack (R-GA) closed out the Q&A with a series of questions to Maher about how much federal funding makes up NPR’s revenue:
Greene and Lynch wrapped the hearing with closing statements and, in Greene’s case, she dropped the hammer with even more examples of bias, such as PBS claiming in 2010 there are Christian bombings on a daily basis and even video of a drag queen on a show aimed at children from ages three to eight:
To see the relevant transcript from the March 26 hearing, click here.
