Rich and Co., on this Friday edition of The Editors, are pleased at the news that NPR will no longer be receiving government funding.

“Trump deserves a lot of credit for this,” says Jack, “and I’ll happily give it to him. As you said, Rich, this is something that Republicans have been saying they’re going to do for a while. And while Trump was president in his second term, they did it.”

Charlie points out, “This isn’t actually . . . a Republican-Democrat thing, although it often intersects with those categories. It’s not a 50-50 proposition. PBS and NPR, despite taking government money and the imprimatur that comes with it, are completely unrepresentative. Now, I don’t fetishize representation. I don’t mind if there are newspapers out there that only cover the banana yield, but I don’t want to pay for them.”

He also says that “the way [NPR] sees the world is crazy. And it’s often hostile to people who do not share their presupposition.”

“So just as a purely on the merits matter, structure aside, of course Congress should have done this. This was not the sort of thing that all of us — and that’s what federal law is supposed to reflect — should have been subsidizing.”

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.