Congressional Republicans target PBS, NPR funding in hearing

calico 03/26/2025

By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A House Republican pushing the Trump administration’s government efficiency efforts called for dismantling and defunding the nation’s public broadcasting system following a contentious hearing Wednesday featuring the heads of PBS and NPR.

“We believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,” said Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.

Coupled with President Donald Trump’s declaration on Tuesday that he would “love to” see federal funding cut off, the nation’s public broadcasting system is facing perhaps the biggest threat to its existence since it was first established in 1967. The broadcasters get roughly half a billion dollars in public money through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Republicans have frequently grumbled that PBS and NPR news programming leans left, but efforts to cut or eliminate funding usually fade because legislators want to protect their local stations — 336 of them for PBS alone, with those in rural areas most heavily dependent on taxpayer money.

The hearings on behalf of the new administration are one of multiple front on which Trump and his allies are aggressively challenging and in some cases sanctioning the American media, which the president has been sharply critical of for years.

This week alone, he denounced The Atlantic repeatedly for publishing texts from the Signal messaging app among high-ranking defense officials planning a military attack. Trump has also taken action against the Voice of America and other government-funded media and barred The Associated Press from the White House press pool and other events.

An issue that’s not going away quietly

A succession of GOP lawmakers on Wednesday complained bitterly about alleged bias, particularly from NPR stations, making clear it was not an issue that was going away quietly.

Kentucky Rep. James Comer said that as a young farmer decades ago he would frequently listen to NPR broadcasts on his tractor, as it was often his only option. But now, he has podcasts and other things to listen to.

“I don’t even recognize the station anymore,” Comer said. “It’s not news. It feels like it’s propaganda. I feel like it’s disinformation every time I listen to NPR.”

Greene displayed a picture of what she called a “drag queen” that appeared on a PBS program geared to children and complained about documentaries featuring transgender people. PBS chief executive Paula Kerger said the “drag queen” reference was about something mistakenly put on the New York PBS station’s website and never on the air. The transgender people appeared as part of adult programming that reflected the experiences of different Americans, she said.

Democrats characterized the hearing as a distraction from more important issues, like this week’s revelation that a journalist from the Atlantic was included in a text chain of Trump administration officials detailing a U.S. military strike in Yemen. “If shame was still a thing, this hearing would be shameful,” said Massachusetts Rep. Stephen Lynch.

Some Democrats tried comedy. California Rep. Robert Garcia asked if the red “Sesame Street” character, “is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party?”

“He’s a puppet,” Kerger said. “But, no.”

Admitting to some past mistakes

The broadcasting leaders acknowledged mistakes.

NPR President Katherine Maher said the radio network was wrong to dismiss what was on Hunter Biden’s laptop as a non-story. After they were repeatedly referenced by Republicans on the committee, Maher said she regretted posting some anti-Trump tweets before she began working for NPR.

Although saying she is not responsible for editorial content, Maher detailed efforts by NPR to ensure a variety of political viewpoints are represented. NPR’s weekly listenership declined from 60 million to 42 million between 2020 and 2024, according to internal documents published by The New York Times, although Maher said Wednesday those numbers have inched up in the past year.

“I do not believe we are politically biased,” Maher said. “We are a non-biased organization.”

Uri Berliner, a former NPR editor who quit last year after complaining the news outlet had become too one-sided, wrote in the Free Press on Wednesday that NPR should no longer accept taxpayer money so it can “drop the public from its mission statement and embrace the progressive.”

“Don’t try to conceal what everyone knows already,” he wrote.

Republican committee members noted that NPR has cited Wednesday’s hearing in fundraising appeals and Maher was asked whether the system would survive without public money. “It would be incredibly damaging to the national public radio system,” she said.

Kerger emphasized the service that PBS provides to local communities, particularly with its educational programming for children, and said she is worried for the future of its smaller stations.

“This,” she said, “is an existential moment for them.”

After the hearing, the Committee to Protect Journalists called NPR and PBS essential public services for millions of Americans.

“Casting them as propaganda machines undeserving of taxpayer support is a dangerous mischaracterization that threatens to rob Americans of the vital reporting they need to make decisions about their lives,” said Jodie Ginsberg, the committee’s CEO.

David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social

Originally Published: March 26, 2025 at 4:03 PM PDT