NPR Chief Faces Intense Scrutiny Over Past Tweets from MTG and Rep. Gill

Apparently, NPR head Katherine Maher thought that she was walking into the summer of 2020 when she testified before Congress, while simultaneously seeming to have no memory of what she’d said up to and during that annus horribilis for America.

Maher, in case you hadn’t heard, was one of two heads of our nation’s public broadcasters appearing before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency on Wednesday. That said subcommittee is chaired by Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, which should have indicated to her what she was walking into and how she should have been prepared to act and answer.

But nope: Maher walked in with the serene smile of the bewoked, a wonderful white progressive savior ready to tell politicians how NPR is a good use of their tax dollars. That smile didn’t erode from her face even as her memory seemed to fade quite quickly.

See, Maher is a controversial choice not just because of what she’s done at NPR — although the network hasn’t gotten any more balanced since she took over in March 2024 — but due to her statements before she took the role. She was previously the CEO of the Wikimedia Foundation, best known for its role in overseeing Wikipedia.

In that role and in others, she’s made controversial statements about the First Amendment being inconvenient and about a number of woke causes including the propriety of looting (she didn’t exactly sound opposed) and the case for reparations (very much for) and supported the deplatforming of then-President Donald Trump in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol incursion in these terms: “Must be satisfying to deplatform fascists. Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place.”

Must be satisfying to deplatform fascists. Even more satisfying? Not platforming them in the first place.

— Katherine Maher (@krmaher) January 9, 2021

Rep. Greene ran through this in a 10-minute opening statement about Maher’s qualifications for the role before asking about her deplatforming views: “Who do you think should be charged with cracking down on so-called bad information? Is it NPR? Is it the government? Is it you?”

Again, bewoked serene-smiled white progressive lady still thought she was going to turn this into a training session: “Congresswoman, madam chair, thank you so much for the opportunity to address this, I know –“

Alas, Greene wanted answers, not reframing: “Is it up to you and NPR to crack down on bad information or decide the truth? Answer the question, yes or no, Ms. Maher.”

“Absolutely not,” she said. “I’m a very strong believer in free speech. …”

“Your public statements say otherwise, Ms. Maher,” Greene responded. Yeah, you don’t say.

Greene then asked about prior comments she’d made about COVID and the 2020 elections in which “you said you censored information ‘through conversations with government.’ Which governments were those, Ms. Maher? The Biden administration? Yes or no.”

“Madam chair, Wikipedia never censored any information,” Maher claimed.

Funny, that’s not what she claimed during an interview with the Atlantic Council in June 2021, where she stated the Wikimedia Foundation “took a very active approach to disinformation and misinformation,” including “through conversations with government,” during the COVID pandemic and the 2020 elections:

In case you haven’t been paying attention to politics these past few years, “a very active approach to disinformation and misinformation” is to “censorship” what “rightsizing” is to “layoffs”: a pleasant-sounding euphemism for the selfsame thing. And the quotes were right there in the question!

“These are your public statements, Ms. Maher,” Greene continued.

Greene then moved on to Texas GOP Rep. Brandon Gill, who grilled Maher about her statements in further detail and inquired whether she agreed or disagreed with them.

“Do you believe that America is addicted to white supremacy?” Maher said.

“Um, I believe that I tweeted that, and I — as I’ve said earlier, I believe much of my thinking has evolved over the last half decade,” Maher said.

When asked why she tweeted that: “I don’t recall the exact context.” Which is funny, because I read at least five articles before her testimony that linked to exactly the thread which should have informed her of the context:

Either this is @Wikipedia or this is incomprehensible and I can’t decide which. https://t.co/AS9XsXKotM

— Katherine Maher (@krmaher) May 29, 2020

(The nice thing is I’m a woman so VC Twitter will ignore me entirely. So! America is addicted to white supremacy and that’s the real issue.)

— Katherine Maher (@krmaher) May 29, 2020

If I can find this five times over and she can’t remember it — but she wrote it — what does that say about her?

OK, then. Back to Gill: “Do you believe that America believes in black plunder and white democracy?”

“I don’t believe that, sir,” the NPR chief executive responded.

That’s funny, because — would you believe it? — those same half-dozen or so articles I read before her testimony showed me that, at one time, she seemed to believe that!

I grew up feeling superior (hah, how white of me) because I was from New England and my part of the country didn’t have slaves, or so I’d been taught.

— Katherine Maher (@krmaher) January 20, 2020

Not only that, her thread about New England and slavery ended with an endorsement of reparations:

Yes, the North, yes all of us, yes America. Yes, our original collective sin and unpaid debt. Yes, reparations. Yes, on this day.

— Katherine Maher (@krmaher) January 20, 2020

“I apologize, I don’t recall that I did,” she said. Which is funny, since the internet seems to recall quite well.

And it went on, as you might imagine:

The basic back-and-forth could be summarized thusly:

Gill: Did you ever believe [ridiculous thing X]?

Maher: I’ve never believed that, no.

Gill: Well, see here, you pretty much said [ridiculous thing X]. I can show you the tweet.

Maher: I don’t recall ever saying that. I trust that you found something that might indicate that I did, but I’ve evolved over the past half-decade, or maybe 11 months. Can I phone a friend? Buy a vowel?

So in other words, she’s incompetent, dishonest, or both. And this is just her own words, not her actions — which include, among other things, actively ignoring the lack of viewpoint diversity at her network and then treating a reporter who called them out in a piece for The Free Press, Uri Berliner, as a dissident in the Soviet Politburo would be. (He’s no longer at NPR, shocker of shockers.)

It also doesn’t take into account this question, which Rep. Gill posted later in the day:

One more question for you, @krmaher: how many of our tax dollars paid for your army of lawyers at the hearing today? @NPR pic.twitter.com/6eRWDlmCdw

— Congressman Brandon Gill (@RepBrandonGill) March 26, 2025

I can answer that question for Gill: Not an inconsiderable amount. Or, I can answer it the way Maher might have: Absolutely none, although I cannot recall, and their fees might have evolved over the past half-hour, congressman.

The point is that Wednesday was a lousy day for NPR, particularly with an unreconstructed wokeista from the Summer of Floyd at the helm of the broadcaster and DOGE’s cannons trained at its federal funding. It went so spectacularly bad, in fact, that it gives one hope we’ll finally be rid of this propaganda leech sucking at the taxpayer’s teat, once and for all.

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