Sadly, Messrs. Elmo, Monster, and Bird were nowhere to be seen on Capitol Hill today. They would not have fit in, anyway, as the proceedings in a crowded basement-level hearing room of the Capitol Visitor Center were not sweet, accepting, or the least bit neighborly.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor-Greene on Wednesday used a DOGE subcommittee hearing to say that call for the defunding and dismantling of the company that provides NPR and PBS with federal funds.

The heads of NPR and PBS were put through the parliamentary ringer today, in hearings that also produced the (tongue-in-cheek, but still on-the-record) question, “Is Elmo now, or has he ever been, a member of the Communist Party of the United States?”