NPR Federal Funding in Jeopardy as Woke CEO Stumbles Over Past Tweets in Fiery Congressional Hearing

Is the end of NPR – or at least the taxpayer funding of it – near? It seems increasingly likely in the wake of an embarrassing performance by controversial CEO Katherine Maher on Capitol Hill this week.

During Wednesday’s fiery Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) subcommittee hearing on bias in public media, Maher, PBS CEO Paula Kerger, and two other witnesses were called to testify and defend the objectivity of their organizations.

Maher, whose ‘woke’ bonafides have been well-reported in the wake of former NPR journalist Uri Berliner’s scathing rebuke of the news outlet and her leadership last year, was forced to revisit her past anti-Trump, anti-white, and anti-male tweets and seemingly did not come prepared for the assignment. 

On Thursday’s show, Megyn was joined by the hosts of Ruthless – Josh Holmes, Comfortably Smug, Michael Duncan, and John Ashbrook – to discuss the hearing and why it is time for NPR and PBS to lose federal funding.

The Hearing

Last April, Berliner penned a bombshell op-ed for The Free Press titled “I’ve Been at NPR for 25 Years. Here’s How We Lost America’s Trust.” The award-winning senior business editor alleged the outlet had “lost America’s trust” due to a “lack of viewpoint diversity” in the revealing piece that ultimately led to him being placed on unpaid leave and resigning.

The internet subsequently dug up a number of social media posts and public comments from Maher, who had only recently joined NPR as CEO, that were indicative of the very bias Berliner wrote about. Maher once again had to answer for her past on Wednesday.

“It was wonderful to see these left-wing hacks get called out explicitly for their left-wing hackism,” Megyn said. “[Maher] was so smug. She was oozing contempt and superiority and trying to be like, ‘Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to respond to that. Now let me lie for two minutes about how it never happened.'”

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) got Maher to admit the newsroom “regretted” ignoring the Hunter Biden laptop story for the better part of 18 months, but she failed to see how the burying of that – coupled with NPR’s promotion of the ‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ hoax and skepticism of the COVID lab leak theory – demonstrate bias. “I do not believe we are politically biased,” Maher told Jordan. “We are a non partisan organization.”

Megyn said Jordan “exposed” Maher by illustrating how “the mistakes only go in one direction,” but her favorite moment of the hearing came when freshman Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) grilled Maher on her past tweets. 

You can watch the highlights in the clip above, but Gill caught Maher in what appeared to be a lie about whether she actually read some of the radical, race-baiting books, like The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates, she posted about. 

Megyn called Gill “a cold stone assassin” for his sober-but-cutting delivery that trapped Maher. “The virtue signaling that she felt was important to do to be like, I’m a leftist, just like all of you, and I’m reading all your favorite insane books, like, which is worse,” she asked. “If those were lies and she was just pandering, or if she really did that sh-t and then just lied under oath to Congress?”

Duncan believed it was possible Maher had no recollection of the tweets or reading material. “I’m not surprised at all that she has no memory of tweeting any of those things because, for people like this, life is theater,” he said.

Defunding NPR?

One tweet she did remember and was willing to ‘apologize’ for, however, was the post in which she called Donald Trump a “fascist” and “deranged racist sociopath” in 2020. The reason? He can pressure Republican legislators to defund her organization.

Based on the president’s social media activity late Wednesday, it looks like Maher’s walk back may have been too little too late. “NPR and PBS, two horrible and completely biased platforms (Networks!), should be DEFUNDED by Congress, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Republicans, don’t miss this opportunity to rid our Country of this giant SCAM, both being arms of the Radical Left Democrat Party. JUST SAY NO AND, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”

Megyn believes NPR will soon find themselves without taxpayer support, and, in Ashbrook’s view, it is for self-inflicted reasons. “Her dishonesty is multi-level in this whole interaction,” he concluded. “And I really hope so many people saw this because they can see NPR for what it is and finally we cannot have to pay for it.”

You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Ruthless by tuning in to episode 1,036 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.