In the wake of an explosive hearing in which the far-left head of NPR was raked over the coals by MAGA Republican Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), Republican Congressmen have put together a bill called the “No Partisan Radio and Partisan Broadcasting Services Act,” or more simply and pithly the “NPR and PBS Act,” that would defund the woke, taxpayer-funded public broadcasting networks.
As a background, NPR receives a great deal of its funding from the taxpayer-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a fact that has risen to the fore as Republicans work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to slash wasteful federal spending. That led to a hearing before the House DOGE subcommittee in which NPR CEO Katherine Maher was hammered for her leftist politics, and GOP members of Congress indicated their potential interest in defunding NPR and PBS due to the sort of wokeness shown by her politics.
That wokeness at those stations was put on full display shown Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) asked Mahler about her tweets, many of which showed substantial bias. Pressing her on one of them, for example, he asked, “It’s interesting because a lot of your thinking, as expressed by your public statements, is deeply infused with economic and cultural Marxism. Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?” She attempted to diminish the importance and vitriol of that tweet, and similarly tried to downplay the others with which she was attacked.
It was in the wake of that March 26 hearing that, on Thursday, March 27, Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-TX) spoke to Fox News Digital about introducing the aforementioned “NPR and PBS Act” to yank away taxpayer dollars from outlets like NPR and PBS, both of which Rep. Jackson alleged are “chronically biased” and have been “pushing Democrat talking points under the fake banner of ‘public media.’”
Commenting to Fox News Digital about the act, which would end entirely any direct or indirect taxpayer funding for both NPR and PBS, Rep. Jackson explained that it is necessary because both outlets have “turned into taxpayer-funded propaganda machines for the radical left, pushing Democratic talking points under the fake banner of ‘public media.’”
Rep. Jackson further noted that American taxpayers shouldn’t have to foot the bill as leftists in DC push their radical talking points, and thus, Republicans should take action to cut off the federal government-funded channels by which they are pushing that radical message. He said, on that point, “Hardworking Americans are sick of footing the bill. It’s time to cut them off and stop forcing taxpayers to pay for their liberal lies!”
Further, his office explained the point of the bill to Fox News Digital, saying that the entirety of the programming pushed by both NPR and PBS is “chronically biased” and, in remaining so for years, has turned them into nothing more than “messaging arm for woke, radical Democrats.”
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President Trump, for his part, has called for defunding NPR as well, saying, “We’re well covered. Look at all the people that we have here today. We’re well covered, and we don’t need it. And it’s a waste of money, especially. I don’t even know what DOGE’s recommendation is.” He added, “I assume their recommendation is to close them up. Well, after they hear all the testimony, I think they’re going to make a decision relatively sooner than later. But we’ll see what that turns out. I can’t imagine that they wouldn’t because they have found so much waste, fraud, and abuse.”
Watch him here: