The heads of NPR and PBS are testifying before congress today and, as I pointed out yesterday, NPR's Katherine Maher was gaurunteed to have a tough day based on some of her previous statements endorsing a range of far-left views.

Today, Maher was asked about some of her own tweets from just a few years ago and she suddenly seemed to have a lot of memory lapses about what she had said and why. She also claimed some of her thinking had "evolved."

Rep. Brandon Gill brings up all of Katherine Maher's old tweets claiming that "America is addicted to white supremacy" and supporting looting, reparations, and BLM.

This woman is the blonde version of Robin DiAngelo. pic.twitter.com/w5BRyMJlHd

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 26, 2025

Speaking specifically about "The Case for Reparations" that's not a book it's a lengthy article by Ta-Nehisi Coates that was written for the Atlantic. Rep. Gill mistakenly called it a book and Maher claimed to have never read "that book." I think that confusion was intentional on her part. She did read the article and it clearly made an impression on her at the time.

When you get to the question about looting, it's clear that Maher knows which tweet Rep. Gill is talking about before he even quotes it. She's prepared for all of these questions. She hasn't forgotten these tweets at all. On the contrary, she's been studying them in the past few days while prepping her answers.

Rep. Jordan got Maher to admit that listenership is way down over the past five years even as the federal contribution has remained steady.

Great two minutes of @Jim_Jordan getting NPR CEO Katherine Maher to admit the taxpayer dollars sent to local stations to help keep them operating actually end up back at the main network #DefundNPR pic.twitter.com/q68Bf8jvGr

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 26, 2025

Rep. Greene pointed out that Maher seems to have some pretty extreme views on the First Amendment. Once again, Maher claimed her views have evolved.

Marjorie Taylor Greene rips NPR CEO Katherine Maher for claiming that the First Amendment is the "number one challenge" for suppressing "bad information." pic.twitter.com/iwqhvNTYef

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) March 26, 2025

Her views on President Trump are also ones she regrets posting (she claims).

Tim Burchett takes NPR CEO Katherine Maher to task: “Why did you call President Trump a 'fascist' and a 'deranged racist sociopath' in 2020?" pic.twitter.com/s1xcHVUTNM

— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) March 26, 2025

On NPR's coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop and the lab leak theory, she admits they didn't do a great job (though this was before she joined the organization).

BREAKING: NPR CEO Katherine Maher admits to @RepCloudTX that NPR FAILED to properly cover Hunter Biden’s laptop & the truth about COVID-19. 🔥

American tax dollars should not be used to fund LIES and DISINFORMATION across television and radio. pic.twitter.com/g8Pb4UTTfd

— DOGE Subcommittee (@DOGECommittee) March 26, 2025

Finally, Rep. Timmons pressed Maher on the bias that exists at NPR. He cited this article published last year by the Free Press in which Uri Berliner stated the following:

Concerned by the lack of viewpoint diversity, I looked at voter registration for our newsroom. In D.C., where NPR is headquartered and many of us live, I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None. 

So on May 3, 2021, I presented the findings at an all-hands editorial staff meeting. When I suggested we had a diversity problem with a score of 87 Democrats and zero Republicans, the response wasn’t hostile. It was worse. It was met with profound indifference. I got a few messages from surprised, curious colleagues. But the messages were of the “oh wow, that’s weird” variety, as if the lopsided tally was a random anomaly rather than a critical failure of our diversity North Star. 

Maher admitted those numbers would be a problem if true but didn't even try to claim the findings weren't true.

🗣️: NPR’s Katherine Maher admits it’s ‘concerning’ that 100% of her editorial board—87 members—are registered Democrats, with zero Republicans.

NPR’s blatant partisan imbalance is unacceptable—taxpayers should not be forced to foot the bill for a one-sided echo chamber. pic.twitter.com/BMWnxq9Ffe

— Congressman William Timmons (@RepTimmons) March 26, 2025

She's saying the right things now but you'd have to be a complete fool to think she really believes any of it. In a follow up piece published yesterday, Uri Berliner noted that NPR has become a true left-wing echo-chamber. It's MSNBC on the government dole:

Over the decade that NPR’s journalism priorities have narrowed, so has its audience. Back in 2011 it was roughly divided between liberals, moderates, and conservatives, tilting just slightly to the left. By 2023, progressive listeners outnumbered conservatives by six to one. Today’s programming is delivered by left-leaning journalists to affluent listeners clustered in coastal cities and college town blue zones—the very definition of an echo chamber.

Meanwhile, the rest of the country tunes out. NPR’s weekly audience fell from 60 million in 2020 to 42 million last year, according to an internal report cited by The New York Times.

If NPR survives it should be on the backs of the leftist audience it has cultivated, not by relying on the taxpayers, about half of whom are routinely dismissed and disrespected by NPR's programming.