‘Ok, But Sesame Street?’ Jake Tapper Taken Aback When House Republican Likens PBS to North Korean Media
CNN’s Jake Tapper sparred with Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX) over funding for PBS, which the lawmaker compared to state-sponsored propaganda à la China and North Korea.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) has said he is looking to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which administers PBS and NPR, and receives about $500 million a year from Congress. The CPB is also funded by individual donors, grants, and sponsorships. Still, a loss of federal funding would be the biggest hit to PBS since Larry David attacked Elmo on live television last year.
The Republican-controlled House is currently in the early stages of crafting a massive spending bill that will likely also include an extension of the 2017 first Trump-era tax cuts, and perhaps no money for the CPB.
“Speaker Johnson has said he would additionally like to cut funding for public broadcasting, PBS, which does receive some support from the federal government,” Tapper noted to Gill on Wednesday’s edition of The Lead. “I just have to say, on a personal level, I learned to read by watching Sesame Street and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and The Electric Company. That’s literally how I learned to read as a kid. Why do you not think PBS is important?”
Gill responded:
I’m a member of the DOGE Subcommittee of Oversight. We were tasked with finding waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government and highlighting it. And one of those that we found, which Republicans and conservatives have talked about for decades, is state-sponsored media in the United States. China, North Korea have state-sponsored media.
The United States does not need state-sponsored media. Listen, if Fox News or any other conservative news organization came to me and asked for taxpayer money, I would tell them no, I certainly don’t think we should be funding left-wing propaganda outlets like NPR or PBS.
The congressman went on to accuse PBS and NPR of airing “repugnant” content.
Tapper responded:
Ok, but Sesame Street? I mean, Daniel the Tiger? Wild Kratts? I mean, you have little kids, I know. And I’m sure you and your wife can bring them great educational programming. But a lot of kids might not have access to cable. And I didn’t when I was little because cable didn’t exist. But, I mean, PBS really helps little kids. I mean, I’m talking specifically about kids learning how to read through Sesame Street and similar programming.
Gill replied by saying Sesame Street now airs on HBO (though the program still airs on PBS as well).
“But what I don’t think the government should be doing is funding these institutions that are radically left-wing and are oftentimes, even in their cartoon shows, geared towards young children, promoting far-left ideologies that are not teaching children how to read, but are teaching them the trans agenda and other things that large portions of our country do not agree with,” the lawmaker concluded.
Watch above via CNN.
