Republicans Push To End Taxpayer Funding for NPR Following Investigation of New Left-Wing Chief Executive
One senator and one congressman are introducing legislation to strip federal funds from the liberal news outlet.
Republicans in Congress are pushing for National Public Radio to be stripped of all federal funding following an investigation by a conservative activist into the history of the outlet’s new chief executive and president, Katherine Maher.
Congressman Jim Banks said on Thursday that he will soon introduce legislation to “DefundNPR.”
“Congress shouldn’t be paying pro-censorship leftist activists,” Mr. Banks said in a statement on X. This comes just one day after Senator Blackburn announced that she would be introducing a bill to defund the Center for Public Broadcasting — the federal agency that grants money to NPR.
“The mainstream media has become obsessed with doing the Left’s bidding and taking down strong conservatives — and NPR has led the pack,” Ms. Blackburn said in an interview with Fox News. “It makes no sense that the American people are forced to fund a propagandist left-wing outlet that refuses to represent the voices of half the country. NPR should not receive our tax dollars.”
Ms. Maher has been the target of an investigation by conservative activist and writer Christopher Rufo, who has unearthed a number of videos and online posts showing the new NPR chief executive is a staunch liberal Democrat. She took over as president and CEO in March.
Mr. Rufo compiled a number of quotes from Ms. Maher via her X account and other forums. She often has used language in the past to telegraph her liberal politics, phrases such as “structural privilege,” “non-binary people,” “late-stage capitalism,” “cis white mobility privilege,” “the politics of representation,” and “folx.”
Ms. Maher once wrote that she was “excited” for Senator Warren’s 2012 race in Massachusetts, and once dreamed of going on a road trip with Vice President Harris. She also called President Trump a “deranged racist sociopath.”
She also criticized the New York Times for publishing Senator Cotton’s 2020 op-ed piece, “Send in the Troops,” which advocated for sending the national guard into American cities after the death of George Floyd and the ensuing riots.
“Must be satisfying to deplatform fascists,” she wrote when the Times apologized for publishing the senator’s piece. “Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place.”
“The American people should not be subsiding a CEO who is explicitly anti-truth, anti-speech, and anti-First Amendment,” Mr. Rufo said in response to Mr. Banks announcing his legislation.
