Congress
Public media CEOs defend their coverage — and fight for funding
The GOP’s crusade against public media entered new territory Wednesday, as leaders of NPR and PBS testified before House Republicans keen on defunding their organizations.
In a hearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, Katherine Maher and Paula Kerger — the CEOs of NPR and PBS, respectively — defended their federal funding, responding to Republican concerns about their coverage and emphasizing the value of their services to local communities.
But Republicans were unimpressed, repeatedly accusing them of peddling misinformation and political bias. And their criticism comes at a high-stakes moment for both media organizations, with President Donald Trump saying just yesterday he would “love” to deprive NPR and PBS of government assistance and new FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr investigating the outlets for violating rules around advertising.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican who chairs the so-called DOGE Subcommittee, told reporters following the hearing that defunding the organizations was “widely supported” within the House Republican Conference.
During the hearing, she singled out a drag queen who appeared on a PBS-affiliated program as a “child predator” and a “monster.”
“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 look down on and judge rural America,” Greene said. “For far too long, federal taxpayers have been forced to fund biased news. This needs to come to an end. And it needs to come to an end now.”
And Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), the chair of the full Oversight Committee, took the opportunity to air his own personal grievances over how NPR covered his handling of an impeachment investigation into then-President Joe Biden.
“I think you’ve abused the privilege that you had with receiving federal funds,” Comer said.
If lawmakers were to halt funding through the congressional appropriations process to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes resources to NPR and PBS, the decision would be a major blow to local stations that depend on that money. It’s not currently clear whether Republicans have the votes to do this; in the past, efforts to restrict appropriations for public media have fallen short.
The return of the Trump era, however, has scrambled expectations for what the executive branch can and cannot do when it comes to federal funding, daring lawsuits against its unilateral actions to shift or withhold money Congress has already approved. The administration also last week moved to shutter the U.S.-funded outlets Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Voice of America and Radio Free Asia.
At times, the PBS and NPR leaders appeared to be repentant. Maher said NPR was “mistaken” for failing to aggressively cover the saga around the laptop that Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, allegedly left at a Delaware repair shop. Kerger pointed to the PBS program Firing Line with political commentator Margaret Hoover, which is a reboot of the show with conservative writer William F. Buckley, to show the ideological range in programming.
Democrats came to Maher and Kerger’s defense, extolling the virtues of public media by highlighting beloved characters from children’s education television hallmarks like Sesame Street. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) called to “fire Elon Musk and save Elmo.”
“I’m sad to see that this once proud committee, the principal investigative committee in the House of Representatives, has now stooped to the lowest levels of partisanship and political theater to hold a hearing to go after the likes of Elmo and Cookie Monster and Arthur the Aardvark,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), “all for the unforgivable sin of teaching the alphabet to low-income families’ children and providing accessible local news and program.”
President Donald Trump and top White House officials are privately lobbying Republican senators to delay a ban on intoxicating hemp that’s set to kick in this fall.
At the Trump administration’s urging, the government funding patch the Senate is working to pass this week would push off the forthcoming ban of some cannabis products derived from hemp. But several Republican senators are demanding a vote to strip the delay out and let that prohibition kick in come November.
They’re hearing from the White House about it.
Trump called Sen. Ted Budd on Tuesday night, after the North Carolina Republican filed an amendment to ensure the ban kicks in as mandated on Nov. 12, according to a Senate aide granted anonymity to describe the private discussion. On the call, the president discussed creating a federal regulatory framework for hemp but did not ask Budd to withdraw his amendment, the individual added.
“I’ve been asked by lots of people to stand down on this amendment,” Budd told reporters Wednesday.
Budd noted that the Trump administration has had almost nine months to come up with a plan for implementing the ban.
“So why all of a sudden pop up for some seemingly innocent delay?” he asked, accusing the White House of instead preparing to “jam this on some must-pass” funding package at year’s end to further delay the prohibition.
A White House official granted anonymity to discuss the private debate said the Trump administration is seeking “a modest four-week delay” through the Dec. 11 expiration of the funding patch “to allow for productive conversations to continue.” Some synthetic cannabis products would be permanently banned in the meantime, the official added.
The administration lobbying has successfully swayed some Senate Republicans, such as Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who said in an interview that “the White House has committed to me that they’re committed to regulate the industry.”
Republican Sen. Rand Paul of hemp-rich Kentucky said the issue came up “in a big way” during Senate Republicans’ private lunch meeting Wednesday. Paul said he spoke in support of delaying the ban and said those arguing for a delay “aren’t very rational.”
“They’re wanting to hold up the funding for the government over one month,” he said. “It’s kind of insane.”
Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is in the Capitol meeting with holdout GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Bill Cassidy of Louisiania as he tries to lock down their support for his confirmation as permanent leader of the Justice Department.
Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) declined to respond directly Wednesday to Speaker Mike Johnson’s refusal to denounce his former son-in-law Rep. Max Miller over abuse accusations leveled by Moreno’s daughter: “These aren’t accusations in my world,” he said.
“In my world, this is the reality,” Moreno told reporters at the Capitol. “This is not something that is theoretical to me. This is my lived reality of my daughter and my family every single solitary day.”
In an interview with Dasha Burns for Blue Light News’s The Conversation, Johnson declined to take sides in the dispute between Miller (R-Ohio) and Emily Moreno. He called for a House Ethics probe to “play out.”
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