'Fire Elon, save Elmo': Democrats mock Republican hysteria over PBS and NPR in DOGE committee hearing [View all]
Source: The Independent
Wednesday 26 March 2025 16:32 EDT
Republicans on a congressional subcommittee supporting Elon Musk’s so-called DOGE efforts dragged NPR and PBS leadership to a public hearing in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to accuse the publicly supported outlets of turning into “radical, left-wing echo chambers” with “anti-American” bias.
Committee chair Marjorie Taylor Greene and other Republican members accused the networks of brainwashing viewers and children with a “communist” agenda and argued they should lose taxpayer funding, a long-running GOP demand supported by Donald Trump and Musk in their efforts to gut government spending. “For far too long, federal taxpayers have been forced to fund biased news,” Greene said in her opening remarks. “This needs to come to an end. And it needs to come to an end now.”
NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger defended their organization’s missions, and the committee’s Democrats used beloved characters from PBS programming to skewer Musk and Trump and underscore what they characterized as Republicans’ partisan distraction from their threats to dismantle the government.
“How many millions of dollars a month do taxpayers spend for Daniel Tiger to play golf?” asked Democratic Rep. Greg Casar, with a “Fire Elon, Save Elmo” sign behind him. “Has Miss Piggy ever been caught trying to funnel billions of dollars in government contracts to herself and her companies?” he said. “How about Arthur the Aardvark? Has he ever fired government watchdogs investigating his companies? … Maybe you’re trying to defund NPR because they expose this type of corruption.”
Read more: https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/npr-pbs-doge-subcommittee-hearing-b2722217.html
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