With Uncle Sam tightening his belt, federal department audits and overhauls taking place, and pink slips being handed out, organizations that are worried they are next to lose federal funding/support are lining up on Capitol Hill and/or burning up the phone lines in hopes of persuading lawmakers to fight on their behalf.
Among them is PBS, which has long been the target of Republican ire and attempts at defunding due to the blatantly biased nature of their programming, which is supposed to be neutral but more often than not comes across as a mouthpiece for Democrat agenda items and talking points.
With President Trump also pushing to defund PBS and their comrade in arms, NPR, Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) paired up with Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) to introduce the “Defund Government Sponsored Propaganda Act” in February, a bill they say would “prohibit federal funding for the National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) due to their partisan bias.”
SEE ALSO (VIP) –>> Targets for the DOGE: Why Are We Giving Money to PBS and NPR?
So with all of that in mind, we turn to Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX), a first-term Congressman who serves on the House Oversight and Reform Committee and who is a staunch supporter of the actions taken by the Dept. of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Gill went toe to toe in early February with CNN anchor Paula Brown on the wisdom of continuing to fund things like PBS, informing her the United States was spending “over $500 million every single year to fund state-sponsored media like NPR and PBS to promote left-wing values that are utterly antithetical to the American experience.”
Knowing how he feels about funding for PBS and NPR, many will be surprised to find out that representatives from PBS actually met with Rep. Gill this week to discuss funding concerns and to try and change his mind.
To say it… didn’t go well would be an understatement:
PBS @NewsHour came into my office begging for more taxpayer money today.
They handed me a mug labeled ‘Made in Texas’… but it was actually made in China.
Just like their programming, it’s all a façade. We’re done funding left-wing propaganda. pic.twitter.com/rORBX9wgR3
— Congressman Brandon Gill (@RepBrandonGill) February 26, 2025
Gill’s tweet prompted the following reaction from Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chair Brendan Carr:
👀
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 26, 2025
As RedState readers will recall, Carr opened an investigation into both PBS and NPR in late January on grounds both partially publicly-funded “news” networks “could be violating federal law by airing commercials.” He went even further in the letter he wrote to them, pointing out at the time how it was his opinion that they should have been defunded long ago:
“For my own part, I do not see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS given the changes in the media marketplace since the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967.”
Needless to say, if PBS thought their visit with Gill and (presumably) other Republican members of Congress was going to change hearts and minds, they were sadly mistaken.
