NPR CEO Katherine Maher warned staffers on Thursday that the outlet would go through significant changes if they end up losing federal funding.
Senate Republicans passed President Donald Trump’s multibillion-dollar clawback package early Thursday morning. The $9 billion rescissions bill teed up cuts to “woke” spending on foreign aid programs and NPR and PBS that Congress previously approved, as Republicans seek to yank federal money from the public news outlets.
NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik posted on X that Maher and the NPR corporate team were addressing staffers on Thursday, and that while he wasn’t present at the off-the-record meeting, staffers present were notifying him of key portions.
NPR is facing efforts by President Donald Trump and GOP lawmakers to shut down its federal funding.
“We are going to go through a tremendous amount of change,” Maher said, according to NPR’s media correspondent.
The CEO also told staffers that they would “continue pushing” until the end of the process.
“We are taking this one all the way to the end,” Maher said, according to Folkenfilk.
Maher challenged critics on Wednesday during a CNN interview to show her a story that proves the outlet is biased.
“It doesn‘t help anyone to take this funding away,” Maher said. “As far as the accusations that we‘re biased, I would stand up and say, ‘Please show me a story that concerns you,’ because we want to know, and we want to bring that conversation back to our newsroom.”
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Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., and conservative commentators reacted to the post with examples.
Kennedy posted a thread featuring videos of himself on the Senate floor providing examples of NPR’s political bias.
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“NPR reported that country music and birds are racist, told American people to stop eating beef, and promoted the Russia-gate conspiracy. No person with a brain above a single-celled organism would call these articles fair and balanced,” one tweet said.
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NPR’s legislative affairs executive also warned during the meeting, according to NPR’s media correspondent, that there would be “a lot of instability” if Congress does strip federal funds.
Fox News Digital’s Alex Miller contributed to this report.
