Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittles, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experienced Shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is Michael Gonzalez, Senior Fellow at the
Heritage Foundation, on why the vestigial NPR and PBS must
be defunded. Good morning, Mike, thank you so much for
joining us on this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Well, good morning, Matt. It's entirely my pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1: It's great to have you here, especially after this I
think important topic, and I think this hearing last week
before the House Doge Committee, a subcommittee, the Department of
the Government Efficiency Subcommittee hearing, I think it really did
it do a lot to expose NPR public broadcasting for
I think folks like you would say for the fraud
it is. You testified and you had some very engaging testimony.
Before that hearing. You come from a journalist background many
years before joining the Heritage Foundation. This is some of
your testimony. You said journalists can keep their prejudices in
check if they want to. Do you believe that NPR
and PBS have kept their prejudices in check.
Speaker 2: No, absolutely not, and they haven't for years. Of course,
that has gotten much much worse, as with everything else,
since Donald Trump was first elected in twenty sixteen and
when they completely went off the rails. But even before then,
I have been writing for a very long time. I've
been writing for at least fifteen years that they should
be defunded. They just have that. There's a code of
decency here, Matt that if somebody pays your way, you
don't really cast as persons if you don't denigrate them.
And they just denigrate conservative viewpoints. They denigreate conservatives. They're
very biased. It's just bias, the partisan they're the partisan
organizations on behalf of Democrats and not just Democrats. This
is not party political in the sense that they actually
favor the left of the left, anything from Latin X
to racial or sexual. The hysteria that we have been
on definitely since twenty twenty, but even before that they
have been on the side of that. So no, because
the whole American public is coerced to pay for them,
everybody both half of the country, and this it's probably
slightly bigger than half, or not more than slightly. The
Conservatives represent more than half the country. For them to
just ignore and insult conservatives violate a code of decency.
They should be defunded, and the CPB, the Corporation for
Public Broadcasting, should be dissolved.
Speaker 1: I think one can argue that PBS and NPR have
long been biased in coverage. It got precipitously worse. I
would argue during the Trump time period. How long has
the bias been built in, the anti conservative bias built in?
Do you believe that NPR and PBS.
Speaker 2: Well well, LBJ creates Rather, the Congress creates the CPB,
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in nineteen sixty seven through
the Public Broadcasting Act, and MPR and PBS come on
that on the air. In the early seventies, Nixon was president,
there was a lawyer, a young lawyer in the Nixon
White House who wrote a memo right away saying, this
is a big problem for US. We conservatives are going
to have a big problem with these two institutions for
decades to come unless we get rid of them. That
lawyer's name was antonin Scalia, who went on to do
great things. Every Republican president, every conservative, every Republican just
lature since then has ta got rid of MPR, has
tried to reform MPR, has tried to monitor its bias
all to no avail, and PBS as well.
Speaker 1: I guess that's the question right off the bat. Then
how successful would the Trump administration be will Congress be
in doing just what you said eliminating this funding source,
because as you noted in your testimony, the game has changed.
The landscape broadcasting, the landscape of media has changed dramatically
over the time that PBS and NPR have been in existence.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yes, that is definitely the case, and that
is a big part of the story. The fact that
you know, we've when they first came online, there were
three there were three networks. They were just it, you know,
but there was there was I forget one of them,
whether Frank Robinson or John Chancellor or Brinkley or or
cronk guy that actually end there ended their broadcast by saying,
and that's the way it was today April seventeenth, I'm
actual seventy four. Yeah, it was cronquerted. Yeah, okay, so
so so they actually that was the way it was.
And PBS, you know, increase the number of choices by
thirty three percent, by third. Today that's not the case. Today.
We have a proliferation of news sources. We have four
million podcasts, we have endless, an endless stream of educational
content and YouTube and online freely accessible. But I tell
you something else that has has changed. And that's why
I'm optimistic of this to be done. And that is
weird because because Trump's second administration has been so determined
to claw back the ground that the left has captured
over the last few years, and they have been so
diligent about doing this, and because of Elon Musk, and
I think what we're seeing, Matt is is a not
just a vibe shift. Everybody's talking about a cultural vibe shift.
Obviously there is that, but there is this a shift
in paradigms. We're seeing things that we haven't seen before.
I didn't see I'm a conservative, I'm not young. I've
been around a few decades Reagan, you know, used to
be my load star. Like it is, he was from
any Conservatives. And Reagan defeated the Soviet Union, and he
won the Cold War, but he didn't put a dent
on the bureaucracy, and he wanted to, and he could
not defeat the bureaucracy. I think Donald Trump and Elon
Musk can.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting you say that from a historical
perspective and Reagan, You're absolutely right. It was Reagan who
pushed and pushed and pushed to outspend the Soviet Union,
broke the Soviet Union, but he could not break the
bureaucracy of the American federal government that says a great deal,
doesn't it. And certainly NPR and PBS are part of
that bureaucracy, if you will.
Speaker 2: They are reflective of that. When I call them state media,
I don't mean that they are they hand maidens of
government today. The government is conservative, it's the executive, the Congress,
and they certainly not handmaidens to that. Where they are,
they're they're handmaidens to and everybody else likes to call
the fourth estate, the permanent bureaucracy, the Cello corrider. They
they the the people who actually run the country, who
who blow life into into legislature, into legislation. Uh, they
are They reflect their views and their tastes everybody who
lives here. You know, this is a town that voted
ninety four percent for Joe Biden. They voted ninety four
percent for Hillary Clinton. Uh. And thevery MPR PBS are
reflective of this view. So that's that's how their state procracy,
that's why they did. There's stid media. So I think
that if they're ever going to be defunded and the
CBB is ever going to be dissolved, it will happen now.
If it doesn't happen now, it will not happen. Raagan,
by the way, was very aware of the power of
the bureaucracy. He had this joke, a very funny joke.
He said he had been to the Department of Agriculture
and he found one of the one of the bureaucrats.
They are crying, and he said, what's the matter with him?
And he said, my farmer just died. So it was fantastic.
It was fantastic, how great, how much he understood this,
but he couldn't do anything about it.
Speaker 1: I am talking to you from Des Moines, Iowa, where
Ronald Reagan of course got his big radio start, of course,
which we're at WHO Radio many many years ago, and
and I do fill in from time to time at
WHO Radio. I think we might have had you on
there as well to talk about some of the issues
of the day.
Speaker 3: But we do old.
Speaker 1: Clips there of Ronald Reagan talking about his days starting
out and how different, of course, the media landscape was
when Ronald Reagan started. There was no public broadcasting system,
there was no National Public Radio. But I want to
bring your attention again to someone who also testified along
with you at the DOGE Subcommittee hearings last week, and
that was, of course the CEO, the relatively new CEO
of National Public Radio. I wanted to get your take
on this exchange between US Representative Brandon Gill of Texas,
a member of the Doge Subcommittee, Catherine Maherr, the CEO
of NPR, who says, but we've changed. We hear you,
We got your message. We know exactly what you're talking
about about this bias. Representative Brandon Gill says, but what
about your bias, ma'am at the head of NPR. This
is a bit of the exchange here.
Speaker 3: Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?
Speaker 4: I believe that I tweeted that, and as I've said earlier,
I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the
last half decade.
Speaker 3: It has evolved. Why did you tweet that?
Speaker 4: I don't recall the exact context, sir, so I wouldn't
be able to say.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you believe that America believes in black plunder
and white democracy?
Speaker 5: I don't believe that, sir.
Speaker 3: You tweet itad it's reference to a book you were
reading at the time, apparently The Case for Reparations.
Speaker 5: I don't think I've ever read that book, Sir.
Speaker 3: You tweeted about it. You said you took a day
off to fully read The Case for Reparations. You put
that on Twitter in January of twenty twenty.
Speaker 5: I apologies.
Speaker 4: I don't recall that I did. No doubt that you're
your tweet there is correct, but I don't recall.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you believe that white people and inherently feel
superior to other races?
Speaker 5: I do not.
Speaker 3: You don't. You tweeted something to that effect. You said,
I grew up feeling superior. Ha, how wide of me.
Why did you tweet that?
Speaker 4: I think I was probably reflecting on what it was
to be to grow up in an environment where I
had lots of advantages.
Speaker 3: It sounds like you're saying that white people feel superior.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that anybody feels that way, sir. I
was just reflecting on my own experience.
Speaker 3: Do you think the white people should pay reparations?
Speaker 5: I have never said that, sir.
Speaker 3: Yes you did. You said it in January of twenty twenty.
You tweeted, yes, the North, yes, all of us, yes, America, Yes,
our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations, yes
on this day.
Speaker 4: I don't believe that was a reference to fiscal reparation, sir.
Speaker 3: What kind of reparations was it a reference to.
Speaker 4: I think it was just a reference to the idea
that we all owe much to the people who came
before us.
Speaker 3: That's a bizarre way to frame what you tweeted. Okay,
how many How much reparations have you personally paid?
Speaker 5: Sir?
Speaker 4: I don't believe that I've ever paid reparations.
Speaker 3: Okay, just for everybody else.
Speaker 5: I'm not asking anyone who maybe.
Speaker 3: What you're suggesting, do you believe that looting is morally wrong?
Speaker 4: I believe that looting is illegal, and I refer to
it as counterproductive. I think it should be prosecuted.
Speaker 3: You believe it's morally wrong though, of course, of course,
then why did you refer to it as counterproductive? Very different,
very different way to describe it.
Speaker 4: It is both morally wrong and counterproductive as well as
being tweeted.
Speaker 3: It's hard to be mad about protests. In reference to
the BLM protests not prioritizing the private property of a
system of oppression, you didn't condemn the looting. You said
that it was counter productive. NPR also promoted a book
called In Defensive Looting. Do you think that that's an
appropriate use of taxpayer dollars.
Speaker 4: I'm unfamiliar with that book, sir, and I don't believe
that was at.
Speaker 3: That you read that book.
Speaker 5: But I don't believe that I did read that.
Speaker 1: Okay, it goes on and on like it's more and
more of that. You heard the the audio clip and
you were in the hearing room. What did you think
of ms Mar's testimony and what leadership or how leadership
informs the administration the running of National Public Radio. Well,
I was.
Speaker 2: There at the hearing and heard all that, but I remember,
I remember very well. I thought that Brandon gil conducted
himself in Stellar. He's a he's a freshman from Texas,
and he really made his mark. You know, this was
his his baptism of fire, and he came through very
very well. He's going to be great in the house.
I think, if this hearing is anything to go by,
I thought that Catherine Maher just the symbol, you know. She.
I hate to say that somebody lied, because that that
assumes godlike powers. I can look inside, you know, inside
her and see see whether she she intended to tell
an untruth. Maybe she does believe that NPR is unbiased.
I don't know how she could. I don't know how
she could believe that. By the way, I've spoken to
many MPR reporters over the years, uh and and they
acknowledge that there's a bias. They say it online. They
at least they acknowledge that most of the in the
MPR is Washington bureaus case, all of the of the
of the workforce is registered Democrat and are leftists. What
they say is this does not impact I don't know
how they can say this. Ira Glass said this one
day of this American life. He said, look, yeah we are,
we're all leftists. But that does not impact the product.
And that's impossible. That is impossible if you have, as
is the case for the Washington Bureau, eighty seven registered Democrats,
a not a single registered Republican. That's going to impact
the product, and it does so a bigger belief that
Katherine Maher, the CEO of NPR could clean this. Paula Kerger,
the CEO of PBS, was much more. She's been doing
this for nineteen years. But PBS is also very biased.
We should not let the fact that Paula Krger knows
what she's doing and Katherine Marr doesn't confuse us.
Speaker 6: Is Bernie really grassroots or another presidential push? The watch
Dotal on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski Every day
Chris helps unpack the connection between politics and the economy
and how it affects your wallet. Bernie and AOC have
gone on a full propaganda gamut blitz for their fundraising rallies,
but some of these attendees.
Speaker 3: Were actually paid to be there.
Speaker 6: Who's really getting paid, whether it's happening in DC or
down on Wall Street. It's affecting you financially.
Speaker 3: Be informed.
Speaker 6: Check out the Watchdot on Wall Street podcast with Chris
Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Well, I think one only need to look at the
testimony if you will, of you're a Burliner who had
been with NPR as a long time senior editor for many,
many years, and what he had to say about the
inner circle, the bubble that is National Public Radio and
look what happened to him for bringing that acknowledgment to
the public. If that is what NPR truly is, then
the question must be asked, is that worth taxpayer funding?
Speaker 2: Well, I mean we saw this, say this is part
of a pattern. Basically, Yes, a uribur leinner who is
one of MPR's own right. He is a veteran of
twenty five years at the radio network. He was a whistleblower.
He came out with his article as essay less than
a year ago. Just took a week after Katherin Marr
was appointed editor sorry CEO, and he wrote this piece
for The Free Press calling out MPR, pointing out all
the instances of bias, but pointing out how the audience
was completely skewed. Only eleven percent republic of conservatives listened
to MPR, now about seventy percent of the liberal and
he was with MPR. Rather than pause and reflect, MPR
just circled the wagons in launching to gay character assassination
of uribur Leinner. But let's not forget that this is
part of a pattern. In twenty ten, One Williams, another
veteran of long standing eperald journalist, alongside the MPR because
he because he he dared flo out the network's progressive orthodoxy.
As I said in my in my testimony, they they
called him a psycho. They fired him. So so this
is what this is what MPR does. It's it's you know,
you know, you know the way he described him, uh,
Juan Williams, if I forget where I put it, he
he said that they're a close minded clique who you know,
do not do not take well to people with different views,
and that's who they are. They become an insulated, you know,
almost almost clerical group.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is interesting. And the breathless testimony of MS
Mahr and her colleagues talking about again we we we
heard you, we we understand, Yes, we may have have
been that way in the past. But we're doing things
to make changes, fundamental changes at NPR. We're meeting with
our local editors in our hundreds of stations, you know,
to talk about what's really happening on the ground, really,
you know, getting a thought, getting a full perspective on
the ideas happening. Do you do you believe that they
are truly listening to the American people, to the polling,
to Congress, to the administration.
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely not. And Uri Berliner on Wednesday, the twenty
sixth of March, the day of the day of the hearing,
he came out with a second essay in which he
made very clear that this effort by by Kathin Marr
to to as she said, to to bring to study
to see where the bias is and do something about it,
that this has failed completely and that what he said,
Uri Berliner was that look, MPR should refuse the government money.
Speaker 5: And she just.
Speaker 2: Embraced being who they are. They should embrace being liberal,
They should embrace they you know, their their progressivism, and
they they they What they cannot do is they cannot
have it both ways. They cannot be both liberal and public.
So here's what Ury Berlin has said in his essay
last week, MPR said the last many it was creating
a new vetting process called the Backstop, a team of
senior editors that would worked twenty four to seven to
quote ensure that all coverage receives financial final editorial review unquote.
And here's what he says, very succinctly, but it doesn't
seem to be working. Indeed, it's not working.
Speaker 1: Very good point, and from a guy who has lived it,
who has been inside that bubble for a long time, until,
of course, he was effectively forced out. Our conversation today
about NPR PBS, whether it should continue to be defunded,
our guest today says absolutely not. It is time for
the defunding of these publicly subsidized media institutions. Our guest
today is Michael Gonzalez, senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
You quoted in your testimony. I think a great perspective
from George Will a while back, and the way that
Will describes NPR NPBS as vestigial. For those not acquainted
with the term vestigial, it's like in appendix, if you will,
something that used to perhaps perform a function, but doesn't
really anymore. You wouldn't have referenced that quote unless you
absolutely believe that that was the case, that NPR and
PBS are indeed a vestigial.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no it.
Speaker 2: George Will has always been very good about MPR and PBS.
Here's what he wrote two weeks ago. He says MPR
was quote like the human appendix, vestigial, purposeless, insusceptible to
unhealthy episode.
Speaker 1: And that's not the first time I believe he's brought
that out. He's been saying this for a long time,
hasn't he.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely, And you know, I hope George
Will never writes a nasty column about me because he
can definitely take a scalpel to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you need you need a dictionary of thesaurus
to break it down.
Speaker 3: Maybe.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless he's sharp, There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, this is I was looking at the people
who showed up. They showed up with an army of lawyers,
but they shut up with you know, I also had guests.
I had like four guests, but they put it in
like over ten, like fifteen people from MPR, And I
was looking at them. They were sitting there in the
hearing room, and I just said to myself, I should
have said this in the hearing itself. I should have.
I was saying to myself, all these people are liberal,
and they know they're liberal, and they know that each
other is liberal. How do they justify this to themselves?
I mean, like I couldn't justify this to myself, Matt,
How do they justify this to themselves that I should
take money from my family and you know, and your
listeners should take money from your families and send it
to them when they are all liberal and they don't.
They may and they lie when they say they're not biased.
I don't know if you can explain to me that process,
because I don't understand it.
Speaker 1: Again, I mean, it's one thing to be liberal. We
see all kinds of news outlets in this country, you know,
filled with liberals, and we're going to get to that
in just a moment. Is how do you get around
that with the institutions of higher education, the JA schools.
You know, when you and I were going through this
education process of becoming journalists many moons ago, you know,
perhaps it was different in journalism schools at that time,
but you know, the leftist in doctrination is there. We'll
get to that in just a moment. But you know, it's,
as you said, it's one thing to come from a
liberal perspective in your life. It's another thing entirely to
put everything through a liberal lens when you report on it.
And how how does PBS, how how do NPR changed that?
For real?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 1: Is it even possible?
Speaker 2: No, As I said at the end of my testimony,
do not try to mend this. This You need to
end this now. The business has always been very liberal.
I remember being an intern, an intern in the seventies,
in the eighties in an editor at UPI the day
of the night of the elections, the elections when when
the Democrats took the House just turned to me and said,
I know you're a conservative. We kiked here. You know what,
today it's like some middle aged guy. You know, I
was like a guy, a young guy in my early twenties.
He was he was being really mean to me. I
was just an intern. And I remember I also interned
for Helen Thomas. And Helen Thomas, you remember her legendary.
She was actually great to me, but she would say, look.
Speaker 1: The grand dam of the White House Press corps.
Speaker 2: Of course absolutely. And she said to me, I know
you're a conservative, but you're a good kid. You're a
good kid. Now go to the Oval Office and and
and do you know, get get this meeting with Ronald
Reagan and Halmond Cole. But the next day it was
just can you get me a Ruben sandwich? You never
knew with her, but I have seen, you know, other
editors have not been as nice to me as Allen
Thomas was. They had. You know, I've faced pressure, but
I've never changed. I never saw recent to change my
stripes just because I was in a liberal you know environment.
But as you said, who cares? I don't. I don't
mind that The New York Times exists. I don't mind
that MSNBC exists. Unlike Catherine Marr, I don't want to
extinguish views with which I don't agree. I just don't
think that conservatives should be paid. It's it's an incredible unfairness.
It's unfair to the competitors. It's unfair to us conservatives.
It is a we're broken, we're broke, and this is
a what it is is a very and I said
this in my testimony. It's a very unhealthy and un
democratic relationship. The Democratic Party unanimously supports giving money to
mprm PBS, and then MPR on PBS turn around and
tip the scales heavily in the favor of the Democratic Party.
This is this is not acceptable.
Speaker 3: Let me ask you this.
Speaker 1: The UPI editor you were talking about that turned in
and said, hey, we kicked your butts with the House
House Democrat win Is. Do you know have you have
you checked back with him? Is he setting teslas on
fire these days?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 2: What's he?
Speaker 1: What's he doing now? I can only imagine what this
guy is thinking now and doing now years later.
Speaker 2: I you know, Matt, this was forty years ago. The
man was already past middle aged. Okay, I just don't
think he's around anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you've survived this this time period.
But you raise a very good point. You know, you
said you don't mind that the New York Times exists
obviously extremely liberal, CNN and the Associated Press. Take a
look at the media landscape, it's all left leaning. There
is a difference, however, between the New York Times, the
Washington Post, CNN, the AP, all of these. Well, let
me back that. I'll say in general, they're not taxpayer funded,
although thanks to Doge we found out how much money
has been given to these organizations artificially. I think there's
no argument there to prop them up with millions upon
millions of dollars contributions to subscriptions and what have you.
But that said, they are in the main not subsidized
by the American taxpayer. And isn't that ultimately the main
argument that conservative Americans are really making. Hey, you can
do all of this stuff that you want, I don't
want to pay for it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, that's that's the killer argument. I mean,
the fact that we're broke, the fact that this is
an unhealthy relationship with Democrats, the fact that this is
unfair to competitors. Those are all good arguments in and
of themselves. But the up and down argument is the
fact that this is as Jefferson said. I quoted Jefferson
in my Jefferson never heard of any public broadcast, but
he said that to ask a man to pay for
views with which he disagreed was sinful and in tyranny.
And that's what it is. You know, we cannot this
cannot go on. This should be ended. I mean, can't
anybody else see this how injustice.
Speaker 1: Is Yeah, it's interesting to me to you know, note
that Jefferson said that long before folks could imagine, uh,
the sound of the human voice recorded and broadcast or
images coming out of television screens. You know, but it
is absolutely true. And think of the time in which
Jefferson existed, the battles between the federalist and the anti federalist,
and the sort of publications they had. Just as a
quick aside, do you think maybe it's time America goes
back to just clearly labeled partisan publications conservative, liberal, Democrat, Republican.
Speaker 2: I think in a way we're doing that. You know,
it was, that's the way it was until about one
hundred years ago. The twenties was the the the age
of consumerism, the rise of consumerism, and in newspapers, you know,
happened to upon this great business model in which they
sold detergent in cars, and and and and and and
chewing gum to to the buyers of the newspaper and
uh through advertisement. And they did realize that they if
they were if they decided with only one side, with
only one party, they were losing fifty percent of the public.
So they decided to be by partisan, they decided to
be objective, and so the penny press, the party press
ended and this great new business model was created in
the nineteen twenties or thereabouts with the rise in the
age of consumerism that has now been shattered by the Internet,
and in many ways we're in search of new business models,
and maybe it will be that we will have multiple
working business models, not just one. But this idea that
we get that we buy pulp from Canada and we
spray with ink and we get some kid to throw
it under our cars in the morning, and that we
can call that newspaper by partisan and objective. I think
that'sty much gone.
Speaker 1: Now, just like the paper itself. We're seeing all of
these particularly smaller market newspapers go to completely online, and
that's just the way of things. So the technology has changed,
the marketplace has changed, but NPR and PBS remain the same.
As Berliner said, you know, why don't they just you know,
get away from the trough and fund this thing by
leftist donors. That's their marketplace, and we wouldn't be having
this argument. They wouldn't have to be coming begging before Congress.
Let me ask you this. If that happens, do you
think PBS and NPR survive in the current landscape of
media and journalism?
Speaker 2: And the short answer is yes. Well, let me just
make clear because I think a lot about this is
very unclear that mp on PBS are but two. This
mini is American documentary, American public media, American public television,
the Association of Independence in Radio Black Public Media. So
so so there's a whole bunch of other outlets. It's
not just MPR PBS. And then the CPB collects his
money and spreads it around, and we can get into
that because there's a lot of hooey about that too.
But yes, to go back to your question, I absolutely
think that MPR and PBS and some of these others
that have just reeled off will do very well with
the membership model. The membership model works. The Heritage Foundation
thrives in the membership model, so so they don't need
they themselves say we take very little money. It represents
very small percentage of our of our revenues. Well, if
that is the case, then where's the problem? And look people,
The argument then comes out like, well, Mike, you know
what you what will happen is that you're throwing NPR,
PBS and all these other uh state estate outlets into
the open arms of Mackenzie Scott and George Soros and
the Tights Foundation and Melinda Gates and all these leftist donors.
And in my my response to that is, so what right?
I don't care? I don't I really don't care.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, MPR, what would be different about
NPR and PBS and the rest is any You're absolutely right.
I mean, there are all kinds of different publicly funded
media outlets like this. What would be different? What would
be so different from the coverage you're getting today?
Speaker 2: How much further can the left can they go? You know,
it's like there's no room. But even if they weren't
further left, that's I don't care. I don't care that
the nation exists. I don't care that Mother Jones exists.
I sometimes read them. I want to get different perspectives,
you know, I I don't want to just listen to
conservative outlet. But the point here is not that. The
point here is with the public subsidy. It should be
very clear.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it should be very clear, but it's not here.
Speaker 3: We have it.
Speaker 1: They say they don't they only get a small portion
of their overall funding. And that's the question too. And
it's a better question, of course for Catherine mar it's
a question for the folks at PBS and elsewhere if
they loathe the people in power right now so much,
if they you can tell they just have absolute indignation
for having to come to Congress hat in hand all
the time. But they know that the you know, the
Democrats are going to support them always, and maybe they'll
poll a few Republicans over so called Republicans, so called conservatives,
and they're going to get their funding. Why do they
continue to do this? Why do they continue to go
through this masquerade.
Speaker 2: Because they like the im premature that public conference upon them.
Because the money is real. There is shell game going
on here in which the CPB sends about twenty nine
percent of the money it receives, but the Congress appropriates it,
sends that to the public broadcasters, and then a sense
about seventy one percent of it to the fifteen hundred
public radio stations around the country. But here's the twist.
These fifteen hundred radio and television stations turn around and
pay MPR and PBS and American Public media, et cetera,
a fee, a fee for their programming, and they make
a lot of money. This see now MPR, PBS, Catholine
Marmade this coct oh no, no, no, no, no no.
This fee is is measured as a percentage of the
money they raise from from private donors. But as Jim
Jordan pointing out to her, mis mar money is fungible.
You know, if I give you a dollar and my
wife gives you a dollar, Matt and you say, well,
I'm only going to use the dollar that your wife
gave me to buy ice cream. The money, the dollar
that you gave me, I'm saving that. Who cares dollars
of dollars of dollars a dollar? The fact that I
gave you a dollar allows you to spend that other
dollar on ice cream. So money is fungible. And she
accepted to Jim Jordan say yes, you're right. Money and
money is fungible.
Speaker 1: Dollars upon dollars upon dollars add up, of course, and
so as you mentioned before, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
is the central figure of all this, the distributor of
this money. How much money, because there's always a debate
on this, how much money annually a are we looking
at going to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That event
is distributed to MPR, PBS and all the others.
Speaker 2: So the CPB, by the way, I just cannot let
this moment go by, needs to be dissolved. That's the
silver bullet. The funding MPR PBS not sufficient. The CPB
needs must be dissolved or shrunk to a size that
is so infinitesimal that that it doesn't matter. It's five
hundred and thirty five million dollars. That's where the the
the the the bill that was just passed a week ago.
The the obunment is what I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: The CRR.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the cr that passed with the gay MPR PBS,
five hundred and thirty five million dollars appropriated it for them.
Now that can be taken back through resision, the process
a congressional process called a parliamentary process called recision. But
that has already been appropriated for the for fiscal year
twenty twenty seven. Don't forget that they're in a two
year advanced budget. They had asked were close to six
hundred million, but they got five hundred and thirty five
million because they got what they got last year. That's
what the continuing Resolution the CR paid for. But they
get monies from other They get moneys from the Department
of Education, they get money from other parts of the
federal government, and then apts their lobbyists. The CEO of
APTS American Public Television Stations, Kate Riley, revealed earlier this
month when she was meeting with other lobbyists that thirty
eight states had given I think it was two hundred
and fifty million dollars to public television stations, so that
that brings it closer to to over That makes it
over three quarters of a billion dollars. And if you
add up the moneies that go from the other departments
and the moneies that radio stations have raised from the state,
that's probably very close to, if not passing a billion
dollars in taxpayer money.
Speaker 1: Directim if I'm wrong, Mike, and you've been working on
this for a long time in your journalism career and
a heritage, there is a thirty six trillion dollar national debt.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so.
Speaker 1: It is eventually time, and this is the time that
the American people, I think in November decided this was
absolutely the time we're going to have to start addressing
this national debt, and there are you know, the supporters
of NPR and PBS will tell you this is just
a drop in the bucket, and that is true in
the massive amounts of debt that we are experiencing, But
there are places to start. Your argument is this is
definitely a place to start in going after that massive debt.
Speaker 2: Well, Representive Rocanna of California, who can be a thoughtful guy.
By the way, he had an exchange with me. He
didn't like my testimony. He said, he found my testimony
angry too. My testimony was the only one raised at
all out of the four people who testified, and one
was Rocanna, who, as I said, is a thoughtful guy,
and the other one was Representative Jasmine Crockett, who's not thoughtful.
And Rocanna said, he asked me, what percentage of the
overall deficit annual deficit is the money that goes to
the CPP, and I hadn't calculated that, he goes. How
come we haven't calculated that, as I explained to him,
because the measure that I used was a much more
useful measure, which was as a percentage of the discretionary
cuts in the budget offered by in the twenty eighteen
budget offered by the last Republican House, and that was
ten percent of the discretionary cuts, So that is significant.
Whereas he was trying to make it sound like as
a percentage of the overall the budget deficit. But a
lot of that a roll budget deficit is stuff that
we cannot touch because it's like you know, the defense,
social Security, Medicaid, Medicare. But the things that we can cut,
actually we're going to have to start cutting a lot.
But the things that we katko, which is discretionary spending,
it was ten percent of the cuts. That is significant.
Speaker 1: Final argument for PBS always is but what about big Bird?
What about big Bird?
Speaker 2: Mike right, And that is a complete lie with all
the Democrats who were very silly had posters of Elmo
and the Cookie Monster and big Bird. And I actually
went to polar Kruger's testimony and I looked for references
to Sesame Street and I found exactly none. None. There
were no references to Sesame Street where she had I
think it was, let me look it up. I think
she had twenty or fifty references to the word local
because they're no longer talking about big Bird because they
they gave that away. They signed a licensing deal with
HBO in twenty fifteen. And so, oh, you want to
know how many times Paula Kirger mentioned the word I
just looked it up, mentioned the word local in her
testimony sixty five times. Now they're saying that why am
I bringing this up your audience, may I may wonder
because rather than big bird, and it's for the children,
all the other cynical arguments they used to make. Now
they're saying that with that MPRPB has, there's no local coverage.
That local coverage. Here's a sylogion. Some local coverage depends
on public media. Uh, without local coverage is no democracy. Ergo,
if you get rid of public media, you kill democracy.
Except you're a journalists. I'm a journalist. I don't know
if you consider yourself a journalist. I used to be
a journalist.
Speaker 7: It should really bother us to to to say that
that that only the government can the government can create
a media structure that will keep it in keep its
power in.
Speaker 2: Check, that will act as a watchdog against it, against government.
That is nonsensical, That will not happen, And we know
from MPR p BS that they do not keep the
power of the federal bureaucracy and the and and and
and of the side that believes in big government in check.
They are they are cheerful supporters and tip the scales
on their on on in their favor. So we have
that example, we know that that won't happen, and.
Speaker 1: That is really the core of this argument, because it's
bigger than Big Bird, it's bigger than Sesame Street, it's
bigger than NPR and PBS and all the others funded
by the American taxpayers through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
It is about this smug idea from the left that
only the government can solve the problems that face us.
And there's just a different approach to that. There's a
different thinking to that, and NPR and PBS don't agree
with that approach so much so that they won't cover
that approach. And the absolute right question to ask is
if they won't cover it, why should we be funding it.
Thanks to my guest today, Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow at
the Heritage Foundation, you've been listening to another edition of
the Federalist Radio Aple. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent
at The Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,
stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray.