Congressional Republicans and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are targeting taxpayer-funded NPR in their effort to cut waste, fraud, and abuse.
Defunding the budget biased network, which taxpayers subsidized to the tune of 11 percent, would fulfill one more of President Donald Trump’s campaign promises.
“NO MORE FUNDING FOR NPR, A TOTAL SCAM! EDITOR SAID THEY HAVE NO REPUBLICANS, AND IS ONLY USED TO ‘DAMAGE TRUMP,’” Trump previously wrote on Truth Social. “THEY ARE A LIBERAL DISINFORMATION MACHINE. NOT ONE DOLLAR!!!”
NPR employs 87 registered Democrats in editorial positions but zero Republicans in the same positions in its Washington, DC, headquarters, former NPR senior editor Uri Berliner reported in April 2024. It also regularly attacks America First Republicans, such as U.N. nominee Elise Stefanik, who accused the network of election interference in October.To begin the crackdown, Rep. Majorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), the chair of the Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency, invited the Chief Executive Officers of NPR and Public Broadcasting Service on Monday to testify in March about its “chronically biased reporting” and “obligation to provide objective and accurate coverage that serves all Americans.”
“This hearing is an opportunity for you to explain to Congress and the American people why federal funds should be used for public radio—particularly the sort of content produced by NPR,” Greene said in a statement.
Greene listed instances of the network delivering biased, taxpayer-funded coverage, including on Hunter Biden’s laptop, the COVID-19 origins, and the recent “Musk salute hoax.”
Greene is working in tandem with Elon Musk’s DOGE to reduce the administrative state’s hold on taxpayer expenditures. Musk has been an outspoken defender of free speech and an outspoken critic of NPR.
“Defund NPR. It should survive on its own,” Musk posted Tuesday on X.
NPR appears to be DOGE’s latest target.
Thus far it took over the federal government’s human resources department (Office of Personnel Management), gained access to the Treasury’s payment system to monitor federal government spending, infiltrated the General Services Administration to inspect real estate leases and cut 50 percent of the agency’s budget, and planned to slash the USAID, which Republicans say is a cutout for the CIA’s agenda.
Defund NPR. It should survive on its own.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 4, 2025
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Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
