Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX) defends PBS and NPR at today's House DOGE Committee hearing.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The gentleman, Mr. Kassar, from Texas, for five minutes.
00:06Good morning.
00:07Mr. Gonzalez, you wrote the proposal to defund NPR, PBS, and public broadcasting for Project
00:152025.
00:17Can you answer a few questions for me?
00:19How many millions of dollars a month do taxpayers spend for Daniel Tiger to play golf?
00:26I have no idea.
00:27The answer is none.
00:29To your knowledge, has Miss Piggy ever been caught trying to funnel billions of dollars
00:34in government contracts to herself and to her companies?
00:37That's a silly question.
00:38Well, the answer is no.
00:40How about Arthur the Aardvark?
00:42Has he ever fired independent government watchdogs who are investigating his companies?
00:47The answer is no.
00:48That's a no.
00:49Madam Chair, I'm told we're here to talk about government efficiency, but Daniel Tiger has
00:53not blown $10 million of taxpayer money to play golf with his friends, but Donald Trump
00:59has, just at the beginning of his administration.
01:01Miss Piggy hasn't been caught funneling billions of dollars in government contracts to herself,
01:07but Elon Musk has, and Arthur has not fired independent government watchdogs investigating
01:13him and his companies, but Elon Musk has fired at least five.
01:18So once again, my Republican colleagues are dragging in a scapegoat, this time PBS and
01:24NPR, to try to distract from the fact that Trump and Musk are robbing working people.
01:31It's Sesame Street that's making things expensive.
01:34It's Mr. Rogers that's blowing taxpayer money.
01:37It's listeners like you.
01:39It's absurd.
01:40The total funding for public broadcasting is just one-sixth the amount that Elon Musk's
01:46companies make off of the government every single year, but you will not see Elon Musk
01:52being grilled by this committee.
01:54I've seen a lot, but pointing the finger at Elmo to cover for Elon Musk might be a new
02:01low for Miss Marjorie Taylor Greene's committee.
02:04I don't think Americans are buying it.
02:07Here's what I think we should be having a hearing about.
02:11After Trump and Musk took over the government, reporters noticed that the State Department
02:16was trying to funnel $400 million taxpayer dollars to Tesla.
02:23The State Department said, it's an old contract, no news here, but because of a brave whistleblower
02:27and an NPR reporter, they exposed the corruption and the lies.
02:32Madam Chairwoman, if we want to look into waste, fraud, and abuse, why not look into
02:36that?
02:37Elon Musk, who's running cabinet meetings, who's running the White House, was trying
02:41to funnel money to himself, so let's stop investigating Cookie Monster and start investigating
02:47how the Trump administration lied about this and was trying to funnel money to their biggest
02:52political supporter.
02:54Maybe you're trying to defund NPR because they expose this kind of corruption.
02:58And if Republicans were serious about investigating waste, fraud, and abuse, my colleagues would
03:03admit that Big Bird is not the problem.
03:06Big tech is.
03:07Big pharma is.
03:08Big insurance companies are.
03:10Elon Musk's companies make billions, $3 billion a year off of government contracts.
03:16That's six times the money that goes to all of public broadcasting.
03:20And insurers in Medicare Advantage overcharged taxpayers $83 billion just last year.
03:27That could pay for public broadcasting 160 times over.
03:33The $4.5 trillion tax cut for the ultra-wealthy that Republicans on this committee are trying
03:37to push through, that would pay for public broadcasting 9,000 times over.
03:42There is money to pay not just for PBS and NPR, but health care for every American, tuition-free
03:48trade school and community college for every American, to end homelessness on the streets
03:53of our cities.
03:54But my Republican colleagues don't want to talk about the corporate waste, fraud, and
03:58abuse because those corporations fund the Republicans' campaigns.
04:02So instead, they want to shut down educational programming for kids and their families, and
04:07they want to shut down local radio stations.
04:09To borrow a phrase from Sesame Street, the letter of the day is C, and it stands for
04:14corruption.
04:16Look, in my home city of Austin, Texas, we have Austin City Limits, which decade after
04:21decade after decade has chronicled American music.
04:25And if they had a bad season and it was private TV, they just would have shut it down, and
04:29we wouldn't have had decade after decade after decade of Austin City Limits.
04:34That's the amazing thing about public broadcasting.
04:38I have a lot of public housing residents in the San Antonio side of my district, and when
04:41I talk to them and they hear about what's going on in Washington, D.C., they talk about
04:45Texas Public Radio.
04:47And I just heard my colleagues talking about educational programming for kids on YouTube.
04:51That stuff is loaded with ads.
04:54And also on other forms of private television, they're selling you and your kids stuff, making
04:58people feel bad.
05:00They're trying to make a profit off of you.
05:02That's, you know, that's why I got sad in front of Mr. Rogers, because you got to learn
05:07something and they weren't just trying to sell you junk.
05:10It's better for our kids.
05:11It's better for our families.
05:13And we should actually be supporting public broadcasting instead of this stuff.
05:17Madam Chair, leave Elmo alone.
05:18Bring Elon in for questioning instead.
05:21I now recognize Mr. Timmons from South Carolina for five