Cantor: Activist's video underscores need for NPR cuts

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said a new video by a conservative provocateur underscored the need to cut funding for public broadcasting.

Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, pointed to a new video by activist James O'Keefe featuring a conversation with an NPR executive, who calls the Tea Party movement "really xenophobic" and "racist, racist people."

"As we continue to identify ways to cut spending and save valuable resources, this disturbing video makes clear that taxpayer dollars should no longer be appropriated to NPR," Cantor said Tuesday in a statement.

Republicans have responded to controversies including NPR or PBS in the past by proposing cuts or the total elimination of federal support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds those networks in part.

GOP leaders notably called for cuts after NPR personality Juan Williams's employment was terminated over his relationship with Fox News as a contributor.

Representatives of NPR and PBS have waged a public campaign to maintain their funding, which has come under threat in House Republicans' new budget proposals. (Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) last week memorably accused Republicans of having a "vendetta against Elmo," the Sesame Street character.)

But O'Keefe's video prompted Cantor to push things a step further.

"This video clearly highlights the fact that public broadcasting doesn’t need taxpayer funding to thrive, and I hope that admission will lead to a bipartisan consensus to end these unnecessary federal subsidies," the Virginia Republican said.

O'Keefe has a history of using questionable methods, including using disguises and hidden cameras, to lure liberal targets into making embarrassing admissions. One instance led O'Keefe to plead guilty to charges of entering federal property under false pretenses after being arrested and accused of trying to tap Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) phone lines.

O'Keefe's latest video features him, disguised as a member of a front group of the Muslim Brotherhood, in a meeting with several NPR executives. Ron Schiller, the former head of NPR's nonprofit foundation, castigates the Tea Party in the video, in party after being prompted by O'Keefe.