Congressional allies of DOGE grilled the leaders of NPR and PBS, arguing that federal taxpayers are being forced to fund politically biased coverage. The Senate introduced a resolution condemning the spate of attacks on Tesla as domestic terrorism. And prominent conservatives are being targeted in swatting hoaxes.
It’s Thursday, March 27, and this is the news you need to know to start your day. If you’d rather listen to your news, today’s edition of the Morning Wire podcast can be heard below:
Grilling on Capitol Hill
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Topline: Congress continued its investigation of “Signal Gate” on Monday while the House Oversight Committee grilled NPR and PBS leaders on bias at the taxpayer-funded outlets.
The purpose of the “Anti-American Airwaves” hearing was to determine if NPR and PBS should continue to receive federal funding. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a government-funded company that received $535 million in taxpayer dollars this year, with millions of dollars going directly to NPR and PBS.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who organized the hearing, slammed PBS and NPR as “radical left-wing echo chambers” that publish biased news reports with government subsidies and LGBTQ programming intent on “grooming children.” NPR CEO Katherine Maher admitted under questioning that it was “concerning” there were no Republicans on NPR’s editorial board – all 87 are Democrats. Maher said that NPR was “mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.” But perhaps the most revealing moment came when Texas Republican Congressman Brandon Gill grilled her about her past tweets:
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GILL: Do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?
MAHER: I don’t believe that sir.
GILL: You tweeted that in reference to a book you were reading at the time apparently, The Case for Reparations.
MAHER: I don’t think I’ve ever read that book, sir.
GILL: 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 2020… Do you believe that white people inherently feel superior to other races?
MAHER: I do not.
GILL: You don’t? You tweeted something to that effect. You said “I grew up feeling superior. Ha! How white of me. Why did you tweet that?
PBS CEO Paula Kerger defended her network from allegations of partisanship and bias, arguing that “there’s nothing more American than PBS” and describing it as a crucial source of accurate information and educational programming for millions of Americans. Several Republican members of the committee disputed that characterization.
“ There was an analysis done on PBS’s NewsHour from June to November of 2023,” Rep. Pat Fallon (R-TX) said. “Where they found that far-right was used 162 times and far-left was only used six times. “
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Senators Condemn Anti-Tesla Terrorism
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Topline: Should the attacks on Tesla cars and showrooms be condemned as “domestic terrorism”? A Senator introduces a resolution on the violence.
Amid a wave of vandalism targeting Tesla and DOGE, Republicans in the Senate are bringing a resolution to condemn what they say is an orchestrated “domestic terrorism” campaign empowered by leftist groups.
Morning Wire spoke with Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) about the attacks.
“It is stunning that we are seeing this take place, and that Democratic leadership is not standing up and calling out these acts of domestic terrorism.” Sen. Blackburn told Morning Wire. “We have lived through four years, where every time you turned around, they were talking about domestic terrorism, they were calling parents that went to school board meetings domestic terrorists. They were calling individuals that would stand across the street from a Planned Parenthood and pray for the women and the unborn children, and they would call that ‘domestic terrorism.’”
“And now we are going through this, where they’re actually firebombing and shooting up Tesla dealerships. They are destroying the cars of Tesla owners. They are stopping people in the middle of the streets that are driving a Tesla, and are condemning them for owning those vehicles and nothing is being said. So we think it’s appropriate that we have the resolution, and we give them the opportunity – members of the U.S. Senate from each party and the couple of independents that we have – give them the opportunity to stand up and say we condemn these attacks.”
The resolution is expected to reach the floor of the Senate on Thursday.
Swatting Surge
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Topline: Prominent conservatives are being “swatted” – a dangerous hoax where someone falsely reports a serious crime to law enforcement and causes them to show up at a person’s house fully armed.
Swatting has been employed as a vindictive tactic for decades and has sometimes resulted in serious injury or even death, but recently, the number of swatting cases has jumped to alarming levels. CNN reported that at least a dozen Trump-supporting influencers have been swatted in the last two weeks.
The targets have been an eclectic group: private citizens like social media star Gunther Eagleman, radio show host Joe Pagliarulo, and Infowars’ Chase Geiser, as well as elected politicians like Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL). Matt Van Swol – a former liberal who gained a following in the past six months advocating for Hurricane Helene relief in North Carolina – was also victimized.
“Around 2:00 AM on Sunday night, we heard a loud bang on the door,” Van Swol told The Daily Wire. “We had a really big storm that night. We thought, you know, maybe someone was doing a wellness check. The power was going in and out all night. My wife ran to the door, I was getting my clothes on, and she saw a police officer with his gun drawn at the door. This could have ended horribly … it turns out that the police had gotten a phone call from someone pretending to be me saying that there had been a shooting at the house. That Erin had been shot and killed, that um, I had been shot in the leg and that there were three masked men hiding in the basement.”
Van Swol’s 3 children were at home during the incident – thankfully, no one was harmed. As of now, there have been no arrests associated with the recent swattings, but Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and FBI Director Kash Patel have both said they were looking into the attacks. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) also suggested that those responsible should be charged with attempted murder.
