As an NPR alum, a former All Things Considered co-host, you might well have expected Audie Cornish to forcefully defend continued federal funding for NPR/PBS. So it came as a surprise—bordering on outright shock—to hear Cornish on today's CNN This Morning, which she hosts, make the case for letting federal funding lapse. Cornish's unanticipated comments came during a conversation with Democrat Peter Welch, the junior senator from Vermont, in the wake of yesterday's hearing before the House DOGE subcommittee on NPR/PBS funding. Cornish wasted no time in putting it to Welch: "Why shouldn't NPR and PBS stand up on their own?" When Welch replied that the two organizations "largely do" stand on their own, Cornish countered: "If it's just 1% of funding, why do they, like, why not take that cut and figure out something else? At a certain point, don't you want to be inoculated from what is ending up a cyclical political discussion about its funding?" Sounds like Cornish might have been speaking as something of a Democrat strategist. Why not give up a measly 1% of overall funding, and in doing so, take the perennial issue away from the Republicans? Something akin, perhaps, to how Dobbs' overturning of Roe v. Wade diminished the abortion issue for the pro-life cause. Welch finished by unwittingly making the case for defunding. He boasted: "You see the support in Vermont, because we have the highest per capita contributions to NPR." Guess what else Vermont led the nation in? The percentage of people voting for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election! No wonder the Ben & Jerry crowd poured its money into NPR/PBS: two outfits whose reporting was slanted in favor of Ms. Passage of Time, and against Orange Man Bad!   Here's the transcript. CNN This Morning 3/27/25 6:53 am EDT AUDIE CORNISH: I have one more brief question. I used to work at NPR. You were at Vermont, which has a huge Vermont public radio presence for like rural communities there. But that was a hearing yesterday. The questioning of their funding was happening at the same time as people were talking to law enforcement leaders on the Hill.  You also have legislation that would help local news organizations get funding grants to stand up on their own. Why shouldn't NPR and PBS stand up on their own?  PETER WELCH: Well, they largely do. I mean, in Vermont, we have -- CORNISH: But if it's just 1% of funding, why do they, like, why not take that cut and figure out something else?  WELCH: Well, first of all, in that question of local news, NPR in Vermont, it's not this monolith of NPR everywhere. We have our local affiliates. And in Vermont, it literally is the voice that kind of unifies Vermont because they have terrific local news.  And you see the support in Vermont, because we have the highest per capita contributions to NPR.  So you may be a farmer, you have it on in your barn, you may be an office worker and you can have it on in your office, but it does provide an underlying glue that helps hold Vermont as a community together despite having very rural and very urban areas in the state.  CORNISH: Yeah. I wanted to ask you the question because at a certain point, don't you want to be inoculated from what is ending up a cyclical political discussion about its funding?  WELCH: Well, sure. But here's the issue that I think is so important, local news. And this debate in Congress is about managing the news. People who don't like what they may be hearing on a particular station. So NPR, PBS becomes a, a, a symbol. But in fact, shouldn't our goal be to have strong local news across the country? In my view, NPR and PBS assist in that.  So I'm a supporter, and I actually think the biggest problem, one of the big problems we have is that local news has become so weakened because of what has happened on the internet and the whole advertising model that has been essential to the well-being of local press has been destroyed.