House DOGE Subpanel Chair Greene Sees Late March Hearing With NPR, PBS CEOs on Bias Claims
House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told us Wednesday that she has firmed up a late March date for a hearing with PBS CEO Paula Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher to examine claims that public broadcasters’ content has a pro-Democratic bias (see 2502030064). Greene earlier this month proposed March 24 as one potential date for the hearing. The panel will take place amid growing GOP interest in ending federal funding for the broadcasters.
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House Communications Subcommittee member Kat Cammack, R-Fla., and Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said they filed the Defund NPR Act (HR-1595/S-746) in a bid to cut off all federal money to the public broadcaster over the perceived bias. The measure would amend Communications Act Section 396 to bar federal funds from going to NPR, “including through the payment of dues to or the purchase of programming from” the entity. Republican lawmakers have filed two other measures this year to cut off funding to NPR, PBS and CPB and claw back advance appropriations to the broadcasting entities (see 2502110072 and 2502120044). Other U.S. broadcasters are also facing tough scrutiny from the FCC via investigations that Chairman Brendan Carr has launched since taking over Jan. 20 (see 2502130060).
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said during a Wednesday Cabinet meeting that his lawyers are seeking “a lot” of money to settle his $20 billion lawsuit against CBS over its October 60 Minutes interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, which is also the focus of an FCC news distortion probe (see 2502070067). Trump was vague about whether a settlement of that lawsuit would be “linked” to either the FCC probe or the commission’s review of Skydance’s proposed $8 billion acquisition of Paramount Global (see 2502110073). “Probably the lawyers look at it, because I know it is going along,” Trump told reporters. He called Carr “a very competent person.”