Here's When You Knew NPR's CEO Was Going to Get Totally Smoked on the Hill

The Democrats didn’t take this House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing on Wednesday seriously, but that’s to be expected. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA), who looks and acts like an insufferable tool, mocked the hearing, asking if Elmo was ever a member of the communist party. Of course, he and the rest of his ilk acted like this, as the hearing centered on two major allies of the Democratic Party—PBS and National Public Radio. 

This exchange between Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) and Maher,

 where the Texas congressman corners her on her woke nonsense, is when you knew the latter was going to get totally smoked, and she did: 

Yeah, she tried to deny it but got owned again. It was a disastrous day for the outlet, whose own CEO made an ironclad case for it never to receive another dime in taxpayer money. Only years after everyone and their mother knew the Hunter Biden laptop story was accurate, Maher admitted that NPR failed miserably in covering a significant story. Again, we all know why they didn’t, along with the rest of the liberal media (via NY Post): 

NPR … finally admitted that it made a mistake in failing to promptly cover the Hunter Biden laptop scandal — as the left-leaning broadcaster fights to keep its federal funding. 

The mea culpa by NPR’s chief executive Katherine Maher came during intense questioning from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and other Republican legislators during a congressional subcommittee hearing regarding the broadcaster’s perceived bias in its coverage. 

“I do want to say that NPR acknowledges we were mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively or sooner,” Maher told the committee. 

[…] 

Maher’s admission corroborates claims made by former NPR editor Uri Berliner, who left the publicly funded outlet last year and criticized his former bosses for ignoring The Post’s exclusive reporting about Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election. 

The hearing included testimony from both Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger — though Maher was the primary focus of Republican criticism. 

The past remarks of CEO Katherine Maher came back to haunt, like when she said in 2021 that the “truth is a distraction from getting things done.” 

REP JORDAN: "Is NPR biased?"

NPR CEO: "I have never seen any political bias."

JORDAN: "In the DC area, editorial positions at NPR have 87 registered Democrats and 0 Republicans."

NPR CEO: "We do not track the voter registration, but I find that concerning."

JORDAN: "87-0… pic.twitter.com/AzaWV9BxBm

— KanekoaTheGreat (@KanekoaTheGreat) March 26, 2025

That explains why NPR has all 87 editorial positions occupied by Democrats. NPR has gone so far off the rails that even self-described liberal Democrats, like Matt Taibbi, have railed against them for being an out-of-touch outlet riddled with content that would make most Americans drive off a bridge to end the incessant drivel aimed at making Acela Corridor elitists feel superior. Their 2021 piece about why Ben Shapiro’s Facebook use is a problem perfectly captured how NPR is just state-funded media. It was an open secret, and now they shove it in our faces (via Racket News):

Is the complaint that Shapiro peddles misinformation? No: “The articles The Daily Wire publishes don't normally include falsehoods.” Are they worried about the stoking of Trumpism, or belief that the 2020 election was stolen? No, because Shapiro “publicly denounced the alt-right and other people in Trump's orbit,” as well as “the conspiracy theory that Trump is the rightful winner of the 2020 election.” Are they mad that the site is opinion disguised as news? No, because, “publicly the site does not purport to be a traditional news source.” 

The main complaint, instead, is that: 

By only covering specific stories that bolster the conservative agenda (such as… polarizing ones about race and sexuality issues)… readers still come away from The Daily Wire's content with the impression that Republican politicians can do little wrong and cancel culture is among the nation's greatest threats. 

NPR has not run a piece critical of Democrats since Christ was a boy. Moreover, much like the New York Times editorial page (but somehow worse), the public news leader’s monomaniacal focus on “race and sexuality issues” has become an industry in-joke. For at least a year especially, listening to NPR has been like being pinned in wrestling beyond the three-count. Everything is about race or gender, and you can’t make it stop.

 Conservatives have always hated NPR, but in the last year I hear more and more politically progressive people, in the media, talking about the station as a kind of mass torture experiment, one that makes the most patient and sensible people want to drive off the road in anguish. 

I know NPR only receives a small amount of its budget from the government but it really doesn’t make sense for taxpayers to give a dime to an openly partisan — and sometimes anti-American (why parrot Iranian propaganda??) — outlet. pic.twitter.com/UIUBOLEtqY

— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) March 27, 2025

In its underbelly, pro-censorship stooges were elevated at NPR as well: 

…a familiar figure was named Chief Operating Officer of National Public Radio. Ryan Merkley, who directed the Aspen Institute’s Commission on Information Disorder and also appeared in the Twitter Files as Wikimedia’s liaison to “Industry Meetings” with federal law enforcement, was elevated to the job by NPR … 

“Throughout his career Ryan has demonstrated a commitment to the public trust, leading organizations that prioritize universal access to the common good,” said Maher, perhaps best known for describing the First Amendment as the “number one challenge” that makes it “tricky” to remove content. 

Merkley’s name figured in several high-profile efforts to control “disinformation” through aggressive content moderation. In 2021, the Aspen Institute created a Commission on Information Disorder, whose big-name participants included Katie Couric, “Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex,” and DHS official Chris Krebs. Merkley was the Commission’s Director. 

It's time to gut this outlet.

You can read Guy's post on the hearing here.