At Wednesday's House DOGE Committee hearing, Rep. James Comer (R-KY) grilled NPR CEO Katherine Maher over multiple stories published by the news outlet.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Mr. Ullman, I'm glad you brought up a point that's been mentioned a couple of times already
00:05at the early start of this hearing about rural and remote.
00:09And I have to tell this story.
00:11When I graduated from college with a degree in agriculture, I went back to rural Monroe
00:16County, Kentucky, and worked on a farm, my farm, for five years, full-time.
00:24Farm to this day, but full-time.
00:26I was in a tractor sometimes 10, 12, 14 hours a day.
00:30And I listened to the radio.
00:31And the only radio station I could get that had news was public radio.
00:38So I listened to as many hours of public radio as anyone on this panel, I can assure you.
00:43And it was a great service.
00:45That was 30-some years ago.
00:48Today, in that same remote area, I mean, you've got Sirius XM, you've got podcasts, there's
00:54internet access now, there's a whole menu of media options now.
01:02But over time, and I still occasionally listen to NPR because I just want to hear what they
01:07have to say, and I don't even recognize the station anymore.
01:13It's not news.
01:15I feel like it's propaganda.
01:17I feel like there's disinformation every time I listen to NPR.
01:23And a media entity like MSNBC or Huffington Post that, in my opinion, consistently spews
01:29disinformation, they can do that.
01:32They're a private company.
01:34But NPR gets federal funds.
01:37And I have a problem with that.
01:39Because if people in Alaska, if all they have is public radio, then all they know is what
01:47these headlines say.
01:48And they're wrong about COVID-19.
01:51And the headlines are in the background.
01:52I don't have time to go over all these headlines that are wrong.
01:55About Russian collusion, wrong, wrong.
02:00About the Hunter Biden laptop, wrong.
02:03And then there's a story about me.
02:05And part of what we went through on this committee during the Biden investigation, which, by
02:10the way, ended with Joe Biden's last act as President of the United States, pardoned his
02:16entire family, preemptively, for an 11-year period, which just so happened to be the 11-year
02:20period that this committee investigated the Bidens, that we had subpoenaed bank records.
02:25I don't think NPR reported about the pardons.
02:28But they reported a lot about how there was no evidence of any wrongdoing and things that
02:34just weren't true.
02:35In fact, there's a story, NPR, lawmaker leading Hunter Biden House investigation accused of
02:44owning a shell company.
02:46Well, that's me.
02:48Ms. Mayer, are you familiar with that story that NPR wrote about me at the height of the
02:53Biden investigation?
02:55When you all were disputing every aspect of our investigation that is 100 percent factual,
03:03we have hundreds of pages of evidence, hundreds of pages of bank records, hundreds of pages
03:09of emails.
03:11Do you remember the story that NPR wrote about me saying I had a shell company?
03:16Congressman, I was not at NPR at the time, and I'm unfamiliar with the story.
03:19Where do you get your sources on something like that?
03:22That's a very serious accusation because we're investigating a president and his family who
03:27had 28 shell companies.
03:30I have an LLC, had five properties in it.
03:32It's in my financial disclosure form.
03:35I've gone into great detail, given lots of interviews.
03:39People that listen to NPR, they're totally disinformed on the truth.
03:48I have a problem with that because you get federal funds.
03:52I do believe there was a role for public radio 30 years ago, maybe 20 years ago, maybe five
03:58years ago.
04:00Because of technology today, I don't think there's a role for public radio anymore.
04:05And I think you've abused the privilege that you had with receiving federal funds.
04:14Because these headlines here are not true.
04:17This is disinformation on some huge topics.
04:22Do you want to dispute anything that I said in the remaining 30 seconds?
04:26Thank you, Congressman.
04:27First of all, I want to recognize your concerns.
04:30One of the first things that I did in coming in in May was to beef up our editorial standards.
04:35I directed my editor-in-chief, who, by the way...
04:37Why is NPR even doing editorials?
04:40I'm so sorry.
04:41Should NPR even do editorials?
04:42I don't mean editorial in terms of opinion editorial.
04:45Do you even need opinion?
04:46What does it matter?
04:47If you're a federally funded entity that's supposed to provide the news, can you not
04:54provide the news?
04:56Of course.
04:57Fair and balanced?
04:58Of course, Congressman.
04:59I mean editorial standards for our journalism was to beef up our editorial practices, bringing
05:03in more editors to make sure that we have more points of view reflected in every story.
05:08I've engaged in a number of actions trying to address some of these concerns.
05:12I've lost confidence in public radio.
05:14I don't think, Madam Chair, they should get a penny of federal funds.
05:18I yield back.
05:19Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
05:20I now recognize Mr. Garcia from California for five minutes.