'Expect NPR to suffer’ under GOP admin: Republicans renew call to defund outlet amid bias scandal

Congressional Republicans said National Public Radio's (NPR) federal funding should be revisited after a senior editor at the publication penned a scathing review of its employees' partisan makeup. 

"NPR has abandoned their own definition of diversity and inclusion with their one-sided reporting and blatantly biased newsroom," House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the No. 3 House Republican leader, told Fox News Digital.

"The choice should be simple: Fulfill your obligation to provide accurate, balanced information to the American people or forfeit taxpayer funding."

Sen. Mitt Romney, R-Utah, also suggested NPR could face consequences for its purported bias under a potential future Trump administration.

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"If you get a Republican administration, and that's increasingly likely, you can expect NPR to suffer if they don't show a lack of partisanship… And that's not where they are today," Romney told Fox News Digital.

Senior business editor Uri Berliner, a 25-year veteran of NPR, recently shared damning allegations about his employer's viewpoint diversity and the effect it has had on coverage in a piece for the Free Press. 

Per Berliner, "I found 87 registered Democrats working in editorial positions and zero Republicans. None," describing his NPR office in Washington, D.C.

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It has added fuel to an already-burning fire for the GOP, which has long accused NPR of acting with a liberal bias while receiving some federal funds.

House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., pointed out that she has called for NPR to lose federal funding "for years."

"This blatant political partisanship is an insult to American taxpayers, feeding disinformation and lies against Republicans and President Donald Trump," Stefanik said. "This state-run propaganda machine for the Far Left mirrors what we see in Communist China."

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, slammed NPR for behaving "like a partisan propaganda institution." He added that "taxpayer funding" shouldn't go toward such a publication. 

In a statement to Fox News Digital, a spokesperson for NPR said, "Millions of Americans depend on their local public radio station for the fact-based, unbiased, public service journalism they need to stay informed about the world and about the news in their own communities. Federal funding is essential to making that happen."

"I would be more than fine pulling funding from NPR," said Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., calling the outlet's overwhelmingly Democratic staff "a free market issue."

Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., noted, "It makes you realize that independent news is, is dead somehow."

"The people in my district, they see through all of that stuff," Burlison said. "They know that they can't trust the… mainstream media."

A House Republican who led the charge on a bill to end taxpayer funding to NPR and PBS, Rep. Ronny Jackson, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital, "After this damning report by [Berliner] that confirms the extreme bias of NPR, Americans are outraged that their hard-working taxpayer dollars go toward an out-of-touch rag that is not representative of our country."

"It is absurd how NPR's chief DEI officer doesn't see zero political diversity in their newsroom as a problem for an ‘independent news organization,’" Jackson said.

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Republican Conference Chairman John Barrasso, R-Wyo., told Fox News Digital in a statement, "Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be abused to fund a partisan agenda. Liberal bias in national media is exactly why Americans’ distrust of media is so high today. The American people deserve news that is straightforward and factual."

Asked if action will be taken in the legislature to address NPR's funding from the government, which is doled out through a nonprofit organization, Cruz said, "I certainly hope so."