NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep joined Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast hosts Max Tani and Ben Smith last Friday to discuss the current battle over NPR’s public funding. There were several puzzling claims made throughout, including claims that Fox’s personnel decisions and Hunter Biden laptop coverage are analogous to NPR’s.
Tani tried to goad Inskeep into labeling Republicans hypocrites on the matter of defunding, “You interview a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives, on your show, you mentioned that you interviewed Steve Bannon, recently. I'm really curious if any of the folks that you have interviewed, particularly on the right, you know, and who have been maybe satisfied and thought that your coverage has been fair, if any of those people are the people who are out there today, you know, calling for the defunding of NPR.”
Steve Bannon appeared on NPR? So what? If a Democrat appeared on Fox, would a liberal say that makes Fox neutral?
As it was, Inskeep danced around the subject, claiming, “I don't know that I want to accuse anyone specifically of hypocrisy on this issue,” before recalling NPR’s 2010 firing of Juan Williams:
I do recall, this was years ago now, there was an earlier controversy involving NPR and its dismissal of Juan Williams, who was also a Fox News contributor. We could do an entire other podcast episode about that, but we'd have to burn it afterwards. But in any case, it was a big controversy, and I went in to see a member of Congress for a face-to-face interview, and we sat down, and the first thing he wanted to tell me is, he says, ‘Juan Williams is a personal friend of mine and I'm outraged. It is just awful what you've done.’
And then we began the conversation, and we're doing the interview, and in the middle of the interview, he digressed from the actual topic of the interview because he was reminded of a story he'd heard on Morning Edition that morning and wanted to talk all about it, and this is not entirely uncommon.
Inskeep then continued, “There are people in the House of Representatives who voted against federal funding for their local public radio stations. Remember, this is local funding, who were on NPR last week, and that's fine, by the way. I don't, you're not required to vote some way to be on NPR. We want to hear from everybody. We want to hear from you even if you hate public broadcasting, and I would encourage everybody to engage in that way.”
Local NPR stations pay fees to the national organization in order to air its programming, so that’s not completely true. However, Smith and Tani then tried to compare the private Fox with the public NPR, with Smith beginning, “Yeah, that was another era. You know, now, Juan Williams is, you know, attacked on Fox for being too left-wing, so—” and Tani adding, “Well, he's gone from Fox for that reason.”
Juan Williams was on Fox News last week, so not only did Smith and Tani confuse private and public, they didn’t even have their facts right. Neverthless, Smith wondered, “I wonder if your Republican friends also protested to Fox over that?”
Inskeep mused, “Well, that's an interesting point,” before trying to compare NPR to Fox in another way, “One of the popular criticisms of NPR in recent years is ‘you didn't cover the Hunter Biden laptop story.’ My understanding is that Fox didn't initially cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. I think a lot of media didn't because it didn't know. You could criticize whether NPR should have covered it more later. We can have a whole discussion about individual stories, but I don't know, just, we can focus on the coverage or a particular story rather than the label you want to put on somebody.”
It was on October 22, 2020, that Managing Editor for News Terence Samuel claimed they didn’t want to waste people’s time by covering the laptop story. On October 23, the New York Times ran a headline lamenting, “Fox News is covering Hunter Biden Claims More Than 2016 WikiLeaks Emails.”
Even if Inskeep was right, however, that would not matter. NPR has a pattern of behavior that goes beyond just one story. NPR has run stories in defense of eco-terrorism and looting and aired audio of abortions. It is a left-wing outlet, and an occasional Republican guest trying to break the bubble doesn’t change that.
Here is a transcript for the June 27 show:
Semafor Mixed Signals
6/27/2025
31 Minutes, 43 Seconds
MAX TANI: You interview a lot of Republicans, a lot of conservatives, on your show, you mentioned that you interviewed Steve Bannon, recently. I'm really curious if any of the folks that you have interviewed, particularly on the right, you know, and who have been maybe satisfied and thought that your coverage has been fair, if any of those people are the people who are out there today, you know, calling for the defunding of NPR.
STEVE INSKEEP: Oh, I don't know that I want to accuse anyone specifically of hypocrisy on this issue. I have always been aware that there are Republicans who listen as well as Democrats. In recent years, I think the Democrats have been more numerous. There's a lot of reasons for that we could get into, but there are Republicans who listen, including Republican lawmakers, influential people, and I appreciate that.
I do recall, this was years ago now, there was an earlier controversy involving NPR and its dismissal of Juan Williams, who was also a Fox News contributor. We could do an entire other podcast episode about that, but we'd have to burn it afterwards. But in any case, it was a big controversy, and I went in to see a member of Congress for a face-to-face interview, and we sat down, and the first thing he wanted to tell me is, he says, “Juan Williams is a personal friend of mine and I'm outraged. It is just awful what you've done.”
And then we began the conversation, and we're doing the interview, and in the middle of the interview, he digressed from the actual topic of the interview because he was reminded of a story he'd heard on Morning Edition that morning and wanted to talk all about it, and this is not entirely uncommon.
There are people in the House of Representatives who voted against federal funding for their local public radio stations. Remember, this is local funding, who were on NPR last week, and that's fine, by the way. I don't, you're not required to vote some way to be on NPR. We want to hear from everybody. We want to hear from you even if you hate public broadcasting, and I would encourage everybody to engage in that way.
SMITH: Yeah.
INSKEEP: You know, I don't want to accuse anybody now of particular hypocrisy, but just be aware that lots of different kinds of people pay attention to NPR.
BEN SMITH: Yeah, that was another era. You know, now, Juan Williams is, you know, attacked on Fox for being too left-wing, so—
MAX TANI: Well, he's gone from Fox for that reason.
SMITH: Right, driven out of Fox for being left-wing.
INSKEEP: Oh, he’s driven out of Fox. Okay. Okay,
TANI: Yeah.
SMITH: Yes.
INSKEEP: Well for a while, he was, kind of, the house liberal. He was open about that, but I guess too liberal.
SMITH: I wonder if your Republican friends also protested to Fox over that?
TANI: Stood up for him. Yeah, exactly.
INSKEEP: Well, that's an interesting point, and I’ll just mention another thing. One of the popular criticisms of NPR in recent years is “you didn't cover the Hunter Biden laptop story.” My understanding is that Fox didn't initially cover the Hunter Biden laptop story. I think a lot of media didn't because it didn't know. You could criticize whether NPR should have covered it more later. We can have a whole discussion about individual stories, but I don't know, just, we can focus on the coverage or a particular story rather than the label you want to put on somebody.
