Elise Stefanik Slams ‘Sexist’ Taxpayer-Funded NPR Affiliate for Lying to Readers

Republican Conference chair Elise Stefanik (NY) slammed a “sexist” taxpayer-funded NPR affiliate on Thursday for lying to readers about the Hunter Biden laptop story and the Justice Department’s treatment of parents concerned about Critical Race Theory.

NCPR, a taxpayer-funded public radio station serving northern New York, was condemned by Stefanik after the affiliate’s Emily Russell published an article Wednesday claiming the congresswoman inaccurately suggested the administrative state is weaponized against taxpayers and unaccountable to voters.

Russell’s article was in response to Stefanik’s speech on Saturday in which the congresswoman roasted President Joe Biden’s administrative state as “corrupt.” Stefanik is a member of the House “Weaponization” subcommittee that seeks to hold the DOJ and FBI accountable for their political weaponization against the American people.

“We have exposed the corrupt and complicit mainstream media,” Stefanik said Saturday. “America is seeing Joe Biden’s corrupt DOJ and FBI fully weaponized as they label parents domestic terrorists.”

A senior adviser to Stefanik, Alex DeGrasse, ripped Russell and her outlet for perpetrating “sexist” attacks on the congresswoman while “lying” to its readers.

“Taxpayer-funded disinformation outlet NCPR caught unlawfully sending emails supporting Democrat candidates continues their strange, sexist obsession with lying about Elise Stefanik,” DeGrasse told Breitbart News.

“It’s more concerning that they are actively lying to NY-21 readers about the Hunter Biden laptop story and the DOJ wrongfully targeting parents as domestic terrorists,” he said.

“We need to defund NCPR, and we will,” DeGrasse added.

Shocking that @EmilyRussellADK and @ncpr get another story wrong about @EliseStefanik.

The DOJ did label parents as domestic terrorists.

The FBI did pay $3 million to Twitter to suppress stories.

Defund NCPR. https://t.co/ty6WKRBk4k pic.twitter.com/Sq5CYwGrjZ

— Elise War Room (@EliseWarRoom) March 8, 2023

NPR and NCPR-affiliated reporters appear to have a history of false and inflammatory journalism. In October, NCPR’s David Sommerstein suggested Stefanik was responsible for the attack against Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul.

 “@RepStefanik denounces violent political acts. But her day-to-day rhetoric may contribute to it. An important thread from @zdhirsch who’s reported on Stefanik all year for @ncpr,” Sommerstein tweeted. 

Stefanik pushed back against the accusation and noted NCPR has never mentioned how Democrat rhetoric could have influenced the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), along with never reporting on Rep. Maxine Water’s (D-CA) comments about how citizens should get in the face of Trump administration officials.

In 2021, NPR published false claims in a book review of Hunter Biden’s memoir that his laptop was Russian disinformation. It has since issued a correction, referencing the now-debunked Politico story on October 19, 2020, which used “dozens of former intel officials” to push a false and misleading narrative about the origins of Hunter’s laptop.

“A previous version of this story said U.S. intelligence had discredited the laptop story. U.S. intelligence officials have not made a statement to that effect,” the correction reads.

The attacks on Stefanik come as Biden recently tried to give the establishment media subsidies worth more than $1 billion through an omnibus bill.

In section 407 of the 2022 bill, Biden demanded taxpayers give over $500 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and $600 million for infrastructure within the public media system. According to CPB’s website, the entity is “the steward of the federal government’s investment in public media and supports the operations of nearly 1,500 locally owned and operated public television and radio stations.”

Among the networks that are under the CPB’s umbrella is NPR, which has more than 260 member stations in the nation that distributes to about 1,000 stations nationwide.

Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.