Drag Queens & Genderqueer Dinosaurs: The Case For Defunding NPR And PBS

The CEOs of taxpayer-funded public media alternately dissembled under oath about drag queen shows aimed at three-year-olds, defended genderqueer dinosaur fans, denied their long history of bias, and claimed that senior citizens view funding for public broadcasting on par with their monthly Social Security check in a raucous hearing this week that left conservatives primed to defund the networks.

The CEOs of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) testified before the House DOGE Subcommittee of the Oversight and Government Accountability Committee Wednesday morning in a hearing titled "Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable" on Wednesday morning. The long-scheduled hearing came one day after President Donald Trump endorsed efforts to defund NPR/PBS.

Much of the proceedings revolved around the far-left bias of NPR's CEO Katherine Maher and public broadcasting, in general, especially on such hot-button issues as transgenderism, abortion, "systemic racism," and President Trump's tens of millions of supporters.

Maher, the former CEO of Wikipedia, "has a golden résumé, with stints and affiliations at UNICEF, the Atlantic Council, the World Economic Forum, the State Department, Stanford University, and the Council on Foreign Relations," noted investigator Chris Rufo at City Journal. Her political posts reflect the institutional liberalism of those groups.

The most heated exchange came from conservative freshman Rep. Brandon Gill (R-Texas), who grilled Maher over her public record, apparently catching Maher in a lie.

Gill asked Maher about her support for controversial, race-based reparations for slavery and her support of the book "The Case for Reparations." Maher obscured, saying, "I don't believe I ever read that book."

"Do you think that white people should pay reparations?" asked Gill.

"I have never said that, sir," responded Maher

Gill highlighted and later retweeted a 2020 social media thread in which Maher said she took a day off work to read the book and came away enthused that modern-day white people, whose ancestors may have died in the abolitionist cause, owe reparations to modern-day black people, whose ancestors may never have been slaves. Maher posted on X, "Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day."

Maher claimed her response to the book, which is about compulsory, race-based wealth transfers, "was just a reference to the idea that we all owe much to the people who came before us."

"That's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted," replied Gill.

Maher has a long list of controversial and barbed partisan hot takes. Maher famously called President Trump a "deranged, racist sociopath" and celebrated Twitter's decision to ban Trump (temporarily). "Must be satisfying to deplatform fascists. Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place," said Maher, raising deep questions about her ability to cover the president and his followers objectively. She tweeted that she "just can't wait" to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020, she disclosed that she publicly supported Joe Biden, because "I'm a supporter of human rights, dignity, justice." 

"Much of my thinking has evolved over the last half-decade," said Maher, trying to emphasize the time elapsed since these messages appeared online. "I regret those tweets. I would not tweet them again today."

Yet Maher (who calls herself a "boss lady") still includes "she/her" pronouns in her online biography.

Just three years ago as CEO of Wikipedia, Maher gave a TED Talk denying the concept of truth. "The people who write these [Wikipedia] articles are not focused on the truth," admitted Maher, which she found good since "our reverence for the truth might be a distraction that is getting in the way of finding common ground and getting things done."

Maher curiously credited the lack of truth with building the greatest human civilizations. "One reason we have such glorious chronicles to the human experience and all forms of culture is because we acknowledge there are many different truths," Maher contended. "I'm certain that the truth exists for you. And probably for the person sitting next to you. But this may not be the same truth."

When Maher tried to claim her remarks actually contrasted philosophical notions of "truth" with a hard-nosed reliance on "facts," Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) reminded her that she made no such comments in the video.

Maher also tried to defend herself by alleging, "Wikipedia never censored any information." Yet Maher once boasted that she took a hands-on approach to "misinformation and disinformation" at Wikipedia.

"You are violating journalistic integrity," Rep. William Timmons (R-S.C.) told Maher. "You're a rabid progressive!"

The problem of NPR's bias long predates Maher's year-long tenure, especially on transgenderism and other social issues. "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," said Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who chairs the DOGE subcommittee.

PBS affiliates aired footage of a drag queen on a show aimed at toddlers and young elementary schoolchildren. The April 1, 2021, episode of "Let's Learn," a PBS show produced by public TV station WNET and made available for syndication to other PBS stations, featured a drag queen named "Lil Miss Hot Mess" reading his own book, "The Hips on the Drag Queen Go Swish, Swish, Swish." 

At one point, the video seems to zoom in for an extreme close-up of the interior of the cross-dressing man's mouth. "I think we might have some drag queens in training on our hands," the author encouraged his late-toddler audience. "Being a drag queen is about being bold, shining bright, and showing a little bit of bravery, being willing to step outside the box and to dance to our own beat sometimes." The series "Let's Learn helps children ages 3-8 with at-home learning," states the show's website on PBS.org.

When asked about the episode, PBS CEO Paula Kegler apparently lied under oath. "The drag queen was actually not on any of our kids shows," Kegler averred. "It was mistakenly put on our website by our New York City station." Members of Congress later confirmed the footage aired on PBS affiliates, at taxpayers' expense.

It was far from the only such example.

Rep. Gill pointed out an NPR story emphasizing "the whole community of genderqueer dinosaur enthusiasts." An episode of NPR's 'Here & Now Anytime" led a 41-minute-long program with the topic of genderfluid dinosaur emoji use on June 10, 2022. "Dinosaur emojis have been widely used by the LGBTQ+ community online for a long time," explained NPR's taxpayer-funded website. The problem? People who oppose radical transgender ideology also use dinosaur emojis.

When asked if this is an appropriate use of tax dollars, Maher replied, "I think our tax dollars that we use are to provide a wide range of perspectives."

"This is not the only example of them sexualizing and grooming children," pointed out Marjorie Taylor Greene, citing the "Frontline" documentary, "Growing Up Trans" in 2015. "PBS is one of the founders of the trans child abuse industry, all while taking taxpayer money," she said. She cited a Media Research Center study showing that 90% of airtime on PBS Newshour stories about gender ideology skew to the left.

NPR also aired a segment titled "Meet the queer people who practice shooting to defend themselves from hate groups," about transgender activists preparing to use weapons on February 26, 2023 -- 29 days before the March 27 Nashville Christian school shooting, which left six people dead. The New Hampshire Public Radio reporter said trans-identified people had to take up arms out of "fear of what may happen simply existing in public," such as an allegedly "ominous threat" from "a neo-Nazi group now active in New England that's targeted trans people." 

But a trans-identifying individual NPR interviewed said weapons training was necessary, because "there's been an uptick in groups that have been protesting drag story times and drag shows." Besides, said the leader of the pink pistol club known as Rainbow Reload, "If the world is dangerous, then you have to be dangerous back."

NPR may have stoked some Nazi comparisons when it equated parents' requests that school libraries remove graphic novels depicting pornography with banning books, claiming in September 2023, "There have been attempts to censor more than 1,900 library book titles so far."

NPR previously whitewashed violent movements on the Left. In the long, hot summer of BLM riots in 2020, NPR presented reflexively positive coverage of the book "In Defense of Looting," written by Vicky Osterweil, a man who identifies as transgender. A year later, "NPR Politics Podcast" hostess Danielle Kurtzleben gave the same treatment to another book that justified the use of "violent tactics" against police: Elizabeth Hinton's "America On Fire: The Untold Story Of Police Violence And Black Rebellion Since The 1960s." NPR's Mara Liasson also likened Antifa rioters to Allied soldiers fighting Nazis on the beaches of Normandy in World War II.

In July 2021, NPR loosened its editorial policy to let its allegedly disinterested journalists participate in "marches, rallies and public events" about "polarizing" political issues. "NPR editorial staff may express support for democratic, civic values that are core to NPR's work," the new policy stated.

Contempt for Pro-Life Advocates, Unborn Babies, and Christians

NPR has long had a biased view of the pro-life movement. As this author reported at The Daily Wire:

"For example, in 2018, 'Morning Edition' reporter Rachel Martin derisively called the nation's largest pro-life event 'the so-called March for Life.' (She later apologized.) The following year, NPR issued an official 'Guidance Reminder' that journalists should never say the phrase 'the unborn,' declaring, 'Babies are not babies until they are born.' (They were also told to replace the clear term 'partial birth abortion' with 'intact dilation and extraction,' and they were forbidden from using any wording that would result in the phrase 'pro-abortion' being uttered on the air.) NPR has also engaged in erroneous reporting about the pro-life group Live Action."

Wyoming Public Radio claimed in November 2023 that a Jackson abortion facility's "decision to shut down has been met with confusion, shock and panic from patients."

The hostility toward pro-life, pro-family views sometimes bleeds into blatant contempt for Christians, or Jesus Himself. In 2014, NPR host Peter Sagal mocked the crucified Savior by asking, "Why didn't Jesus just offer to take the picture Himself? His hands were occupied." In 2010, Tavis Smiley said Christians blow people up "every single day in this country."

"I haven't seen that happen, ever in my life," noted Greene.

Gill later highlighted some of the worst examples of NPR/PBS bias over the years:

Julianne Malveaux told the PBS show "To the Contrary" in 1994, "I hope [Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas's Ginny] wife feeds him lots of eggs and butter, and he dies early, like so many black men do, of heart disease."

Nina Totenberg implied then-Senator Jesse Helms, a social conservative, "ought to be worried about what's going on in the good Lord's mind, because if there's retributive justice, he'll get AIDS from a transfusion or one of his grandchildren will get it" in an July 8, 1995, interview. Helms died of natural causes in 2008.

At the outbreak of the American war with Iraq, PBS mainstay Bill Moyers compared the American flag to the "Little Red Book" by Communist Chinese dictator and mass murderer Mao Zedong. "When I see flags sprouting on official lapels, I think of the time in China when I saw Mao's little red book on every official's desk, omnipresent and unread," said Moyers.

In 2020, PBS replayed a segment from contributor Christiane Amanpour, who compared President Donald Trump's first term in office to Kristallnacht, "the Nazis' warning shot across the bow of our human civilization that led to genocide against a whole identity." She accused President Trump of perpetrating "four years of a modern-day assault on those same values."

Several congressmen noted that NPR bragged about not covering the Hunter Biden laptop story. "The biggest reason you haven't heard much on NPR about the Post story is that the assertions don't amount to much," wrote NPR Managing Editor Kelly McBride in 2020. "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners' and readers' time on stories that are just pure distractions," said another NPR employee, Terence Samuels. Maher said NPR now regrets not covering the story.

Rep. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) noted NPR interviewed Adam Schiff 25 times over the Russian collusion hoax but Rep. Comer zero times about the Biden family's scandals. "I can understand why Democrats (on this committee) are going to defend you, because you've become a propaganda arm" for them, declared Fallon.

Despite pervasive evidence, both public media CEOs denied any problem.

Both CEOs denied the journalists had any bias, because their audience is politically balanced. "Our audience mirrors the overall U.S. population," claimed Kerger. Similarly, Maher said, "What we look at is the distribution of people who listen" to NPR. "What we look at is the distribution of people who listen to our work, and I'm proud to tell you for our digital, for our podcasts and our website ... The distribution on our website i] 33% of folks who come are conservative vs. 28% who are liberal."

When confronted with figures that NPR's Washington bureau employed 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, according to former employee Uri Berliner, Maher found the statistic "concerning," if it is true.

Kerger defended her network's political balance by citing rabid Democrats and a Republican who has tried to read social conservatives out of the Republican Party.

"We're constantly looking to making sure that we're bringing forward a diversity of viewpoints and perspectives and experiences that really do make up the fabric of this country," said Kerger. She cited a forthcoming series by Ken Burns to celebrate 250th anniversary of America, as well as the TV series "Firing Line," founded by the late William F. Buckley Jr. and later revamped by current host Margaret Hoover.

Hoover endorsed same-sex marriage on the Fox News website in 2010, signed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court favoring the judicial redefinition of marriage in 2013, and founded a nonprofit called the American Unity Fund that is dedicated to "making the conservative case" for the LGBTQ agenda. "I moonlight as an LGBT advocate," Hoover explained to Stephen Colbert in 2018. Hoover vocally opposes pro-life laws and has long urged the GOP to distance itself from the "second-tier" issue.

"People like you who try to divide our party on social issues, that is not the way forward for the Republican Party," said Hoover on FNC in 2011.

In 1998, Ken Burns delivered a speech titled "Why I Am a Yellow Dog Democrat." He compared Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's (R) bill to banish critical race theory and gender studies from public schools with "a Soviet system" or the Nazis.

NPR as Important to Senior Citizens as Social Security?

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the parent of NPR and PBS, received $535 million from the federal government in its most recent budget -- a subject about which CPB frequently misleads. NPR gets 31% of its funding from charging local NPR affiliates fees to carry its nationally syndicated programming. Under questioning from Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), Maher agreed that over the last five years, NPR has lost 18 million listeners.

Some asked why politically biased programming should continue to receive half a billion dollars annually when Americans have a national debt topping $36 trillion. Eventually, funding priorities crowd out critical programs.

"If you were forced to make a decision, there wasn't enough money to go around: Social Security or NPR?" Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.) asked Maher.

"We know how important public media is to our nation's seniors, sir," said Maher.

"More important than Social Security? I think the American people would disagree," replied Burlison.

Democrats attempted to make a mockery of the proceedings by asking hyperbolic questions about PBS Kids characters and other muppets. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) showed a 2021 tweet in which Big Bird proclaimed, "I got the COVID-19 vaccine today!" He also implied fellow "Sesame Street" characters Bert and Ernie are gay.

The hearing showed public media's bias is pervasive enough that Chairwoman Green also plans to investigate the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees the Voice of America. Last April, VOA published a taxpayer-funded story blaming President Trump and conservative Christians for declining church attendance. 

One "primary" reason Americans have had flagging church attendance is their "allergic reaction to the religious right," University of Notre Dame political science professor David Campbell told VOA reporter Dora Mekouar in a story titled "Why Americans are losing their religion," published last April 23.

"I've lost confidence in public radio," said Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), who said he once listened for hours at a time while driving the tractor on his family farm. "I don't think they should receive ... a penny of federal funds."

"I'll spend all of my time doing everything I can to ensure you guys never get another dollar of taxpayer funding. This is complete garbage," said Gill.

Originally published at The Washington Stand