Josh Hawley Uses Anti-Trust Hearing to Do Some Anti-Trans Fear-Mongering

Weeks after he used the Senate floor to harangue a doctor about whether men can get pregnant, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) abused yet another committee hearing to amplify his anti-trans agenda, this time hounding Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos about why so much of the streamer’s content supposedly promotes “gender ideology.” Big talk coming from someone whose Slenderman vibes alone deserve a content warning.

Here’s Josh Hawley going on a several-minute rant about trans people existing in Netflix content: www.youtube.com/live/447CgcA…

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— Parker Molloy (@parkermolloy.com) February 3, 2026 at 4:59 PM

On Tuesday, the Senate subcommittee on antitrust, competition policy, and consumer rights held a hearing over Netflix’s proposed $83 million bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery. If the deal goes through, Netflix would become the biggest streaming platform in the world, dwarfing Disney, which has held the title since 2022.

While some of the committee members used the antitrust hearing to interrogate actual antitrust issues, Hawley and several other GOP lawmakers used it to whine about “woke” television.

“On Netflix, you’ll find that an enormous amount—and I say this as a parent with three young children—an enormous amount of your children’s programming has this ideology and agenda in it,” Hawley asked, naturally, referring to transgender people and gender-affirming care. “Is this an advocacy position for Netflix? Is this an ideological commitment you have?”

“Netflix has no political agenda of any kind,” Sarandos responded. “Well, then why is your children’s program so full of this highly sexualized, highly controversial, highly controversial agenda?,” Hawley replied. “I don’t understand it, it seems strange to me.”

“Respectfully, sir, because it’s inaccurate,” Sarandos said. “We have millions of hours of children’s programming…I’m saying we feature a wide variety of stories and programs to meet a wife variety of people’s tastes.”

Hawley then cut him off to essentially repeat himself: “Why does almost ‘half’ of your children’s program feature this highly controversial, highly sexualized material? That just seems strange to me. That can’t possibly be a reflection of the population.”

Sarandos said he had no idea where he got that number. But CNN pointed out that the “almost half” claim appears to come from another bogus study created by the Heritage Foundation called “Fedflix: Netflix, The Federal Government, and the New Propaganda State,” which was published in January. It essentially claims with zero evidence that there’s been a conspiracy theory between the government and Netflix to make everyone trans and gay. (Don’t threaten me with a good time!)

Hawley then launched into a monologue about how he can’t ever let his kids watch anything on Netflix without previewing it first, and that the streamer is undermining parents everywhere—to which Sarandos calmly reminded him that Netflix offers extensive parental controls.

“The overwhelming majority of [Netflix’s] stuff is overwhelmingly woke, and it’s not reflective of what the American people want to see,” Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) added during his time. “Why in the world would we give a seal of approval or a thumbs up to make you the largest behemoth on the planet related to content?” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) added that Netflix “is a left-wing company.” He said the merger would make the service a “propaganda outlet pushing one particular political view with much greater market power.”

Alas, as it seems the GOP is still unaware of who the real propaganda outlet really is, here’s a single hint: it’s literally coming from inside their own house.

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