During a House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing on Wednesday, Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-AZ) questioned witnesses about bias at NPR, and accountability for the outlet.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 - The gentleman yields back.
00:01 Now recognize Ms. Lesko for her five minutes of questioning.
00:04 - Thank you very much, Mr. Chair,
00:06 and thank you all for being here to testify today.
00:09 I appreciate all your work.
00:11 You know, I'm a supporter of local news.
00:14 I think it's valuable, and I think we need it.
00:19 I think there's a hunger in our society
00:22 for just plain, unbiased news.
00:25 You know, I talk to people all the time
00:29 and they're like, "I turned off the TV.
00:32 "I don't even watch that anymore.
00:34 "It just irritates me," you know?
00:36 And people are just fed up.
00:37 Their blood pressure's too high.
00:39 And I even look around, I'm like, "What is the truth?
00:43 "What is the truth?"
00:44 It's just all opinions.
00:46 And so I want that, but if my taxpayer dollars
00:51 and my constituents' taxpayer dollars are paying for NPR,
00:58 then it should be unbiased.
01:00 That's the point.
01:02 And when my Democratic colleagues are passionate
01:05 and say, "Well, Fox News is biased,"
01:08 well, guess what?
01:09 CNN and MSN is biased too,
01:13 but the point is they're not publicly funded.
01:16 That's the reason we're here.
01:18 We're here because we're talking about taxpayer dollars.
01:22 And when my Democratic colleagues say,
01:24 "This is a waste of time.
01:25 "We shouldn't be talking about this,"
01:27 yes, we should.
01:28 We're funding this.
01:30 Yeah, it's only $5 million direct funds to NPR,
01:34 but as was pointed out,
01:36 all of the member stations have to pay in,
01:39 and guess where those member stations get the money from?
01:42 Well, they get it from taxpayer dollars
01:44 through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, right?
01:47 And so don't tell me it's just $5 million.
01:50 It's a heck of a lot more taxpayer dollars than that.
01:53 And so my first question is for Mr. Graham.
01:57 Mr. Graham, what accountability measures
01:59 should be implemented to ensure NPR provides
02:02 impartial coverage and serves a broader audience?
02:06 - Yeah, I mean, I think this has been the whole problem,
02:08 as the chairman was saying, that the federal,
02:10 that the legislature doesn't want to sit there
02:13 and listen to it.
02:15 I think that a more regular hearing process
02:19 would be important.
02:20 It would be good for Katherine Maher
02:21 to actually have to come up here and say,
02:23 "Please explain to us why
02:26 "you decided the Hunter Biden laptop wasn't a story."
02:30 And the executive that decided this,
02:35 that it was a pure distraction,
02:37 is now the editor of USA Today.
02:39 He got promoted for that kind of news judgment.
02:43 I'm not sure, other than some oversight hearings,
02:47 I'm sure we don't want to have members of Congress
02:49 do what we do and sit here and count minutes and seconds,
02:53 but anybody who tries to do that is gonna see,
02:56 for example, yes, they're not covering Republican hearings.
03:00 NPR doesn't want to cover Republican hearings,
03:03 but they're gonna give 45 hours
03:06 to the January 6th committee
03:07 where the Republicans weren't even allowed
03:09 to select their own members.
03:11 It's not hard to figure out.
03:14 Is NPR biased?
03:16 Listen to it for an hour.
03:18 It's not difficult to figure out.
03:21 It's not rocket science.
03:23 Just this morning, they were talking about the white bonus,
03:27 that white people benefit from systemic racism
03:30 and we all have white privilege.
03:35 There's a lot of white people in America who are like,
03:39 I don't really like this story, and guess what?
03:41 I don't get to speak.
03:43 You know, a lot of these things,
03:44 there's nobody in there to say,
03:46 well, now for somebody who doesn't believe
03:48 there's a defense of looting, now you get two minutes.
03:52 That's a problem.
03:53 I think oversight hearings may be just the thing to do,
03:56 but you can see from the CEO not showing up,
04:00 she's not ready to handle this.
04:02 She doesn't take it seriously.
04:04 I know she just started, but she was hired
04:10 because of all these crazy tweets, right?
04:12 They didn't disqualify her.
04:14 They basically qualified her when she said,
04:16 well, I see why people would riot and loot.
04:19 - Well, thank you for your comments
04:22 and you can see from the hemorrhaging of people
04:25 that are in the middle or conservative listening to NPR
04:30 that it's gotten so left-leaning and so biased
04:33 that the people have given up listening to them
04:35 and that's sad.
04:36 It's a sad state of affairs
04:38 and I wanna help try to correct it
04:40 because I do want local news.
04:42 I do want, I just want the news, okay?
04:45 I don't wanna hear somebody's opinion.
04:48 And so, Mr. Irwin, you're with the Taxpayer Union, is that?
04:53 - Americans for Tax Reform.
04:56 - Oh, thank you, I'm sorry.
04:58 How can taxpayer funding be used as a leverage point
05:03 to encourage NPR to diversify its political viewpoints?
05:06 I mean, that's kind of the gist of this hearing, isn't it?
05:09 - Sure, I know we're over time, but quickly,
05:12 there's been a lot of talk about
05:14 the intimidation of journalists
05:16 and that this hearing is the intimidation
05:17 of NPR journalists.
05:19 There's some truth to that, you know why?
05:22 'Cause it's federally funded
05:23 and this committee has leverage over the news coverage
05:25 that NPR is going to be capable of producing.
05:28 That is wrong in a free society.
05:30 In a democracy, you do not have state media.
05:32 That is a dystopian, totalitarian,
05:34 Iron Curtain-style system.
05:37 But what can be done to reform?
05:38 I think that these other two witnesses
05:40 have mentioned some great suggestions.
05:42 The decentralization is gonna be a great one,
05:44 the focus on local news, regular hearings,
05:47 more regular oversight.
05:48 The last time in 1999, when this committee
05:50 did have a hearing with NPR, by the way,
05:51 it was over a scandal where local affiliates
05:54 were sharing donor lists with Democratic Party operatives.
05:58 So, I mean, I think that to call it a propaganda arm
06:02 for the Democratic Party, it falls a little bit short.
06:05 It's more of a money laundering operation
06:06 for in-kind contributions to Democratic campaigns
06:10 well beyond federal election regulation limits.
06:13 But I mean, I think our suggestion is simply
06:15 take away the money and make it a voluntary contribution
06:18 that you can check on your tax form if you would like,
06:20 and the disproportionately affluent people
06:23 who do pay taxes will be able to make a contribution.
06:26 - Thank you, and I yield back.