Marjorie Taylor Greene wrapped up Wednesday’s DOGE subcommittee hearing on federal funding for public media by warning in regards to the “propaganda” airing on NPR and PBS, content material “so radical,” she stated, that “it’s brainwashing the American folks and, extra considerably, American youngsters, with un-American, anti-family, pro-crime pretend information.”
Greene’s concluding screed might’ve been anticipated for a listening to billed as follows: “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable.” The Georgia consultant would ultimately name “for the entire and complete defund and dismantling of the Company for Public Broadcasting,” however not earlier than NPR’s Katherine Maher and PBS’s Paula Kerger confronted a litany of questions on the whole lot from protection of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer and COVID’s origins to previous tweets and content material that includes drag performers.
Democrats, in the meantime, questioned why Congress was specializing in the likes of Sesame Road within the midst of surprising revelations that high Trump administration officers had been sharing and discussing assault plans in a Sign chat that mistakenly included a journalist. Consultant Stephen Lynch slammed the GOP Home majority for failing to “maintain Trump and Trump’s administration accountable,” including: “They might fairly submit up in opposition to Massive Hen than take care of that.” Consultant Jasmine Crockett used her time to challenge her Republican colleagues, saying, “The concept that you need to shut down all people that isn’t Fox Information is bullshit.”
U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) speaks in entrance of poster of Sesame Road’s Massive Hen throughout a Home Oversight and Authorities Reform Committee listening to on the U.S. Capitol on March 26, 2025 in Washington, DC.From Getty Photos.
The listening to was charged from the start, with Greene flanked by an image of drag performer Lil Miss Sizzling Mess—whom she referred to as a “monster”—who she claimed had appeared in PBS programming. Kerger stated the performer was really not featured in any of the broadcaster’s “child reveals,” explaining that the picture accompanying Greene was from a digital undertaking made in partnership with PBS’s native New York Metropolis station and the town’s training division. That rationalization was not passable for Greene, who circled again to the drag performer in her closing statements, enjoying a clip of them for the subcommittee, calling it “repulsive,” and deeming the performer a “youngster predator.” Greene leveled the accusation that Kerger “lied below oath” when she stated the performer wasn’t featured in PBS’s youngsters’s programming, with Greene saying that the performed clip had aired on the station in April 2021 and later been mysteriously eliminated. “I’m wondering why,” Greene taunted.
Maher was interrogated considerably greater than Kerger, on issues about NPR’s protection in addition to her private social media and look observe document. GOP consultant Tim Burchett questioned Maher about having referred to as Donald Trump a “racist” and “fascist” on social media. Maher instructed the committee, “I remorse these tweets. I’d not tweet them once more as we speak. They represented a time the place I used to be reflecting on one thing that, I imagine, the president had stated, fairly than who he’s.”
Maher additionally acknowledged that NPR had made some slipups previous to her tenure as CEO and president, particularly when it got here to protection of Hunter Biden’s laptop computer. Relating to the dearth of protection, she stated that the group’s “present editorial management believes that that was a mistake, as do I,” including that NPR ought to have adopted the story extra “aggressively.” As for reporting on COVID’s origins, Maher told the subcommittee that the brand new proof associated to the Wuhan lab-leak principle “is worthy of protection, and [we] have coated it.”
