MAGA KILLS VOICE OF THE COLD WAR
Justin Baragona
Fri, June 20, 2025
Fri, June 20, 2025
THE INDEPENDENT
Kari Lake announced on Friday that 639 employees from Voice of America and its parent agency would be terminated effective September 1. (Getty Images)
In its latest attack on Voice of America, the Trump administration sent out layoff notices to hundreds of the government-funded news network’s employees, making official what had long been expected after all contractors were fired last month.
This latest move, which eliminates 639 full-time staffers from VOA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the network’s parent bureau, comes just days after USAGM Senior Adviser Kari Lake called back dozens of employees for the network’s Persian-language service amid Israel’s conflict with Iran.
A significant portion of the VOA Farsi staff recently brought back to work are included in Lake’s reduction-in-force order, two sources familiar with the matter told The Independent.
Since mid-March, the vast majority of VOA employees have been on paid administrative leave following President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for USAGM and the state-run media outlets it oversees to be gutted of all “non-statutory components and functions.” At the time, Trump called VOA “the voice of radical America” and accused it of peddling “anti-American” and liberal propaganda.
Lawsuits brought by VOA staffers and executives have sought to stop the administration’s efforts to effectively dismantle the network, claiming that the president didn’t have the constitutional authority. While a federal judge issued an injunction in April that would have allowed VOA employees to return to work, an appellate court stayed most of that ruling, leaving the majority of the staff in limbo.
In recent weeks, Lake brought back a skeleton crew to keep Voice of America staffed at a “statutory minimum,” a move that left those employees “angry most of the time” as the “amount of programming that’s being produced is not a credible replacement for what was on air before.” Additionally, Lake cut a deal with MAGA cable news channel One America News to become a content provider for VOA down the road.
Earlier this month, Lake – a former local TV anchor and twice-failed Arizona political candidate – sent Congress a letter detailing her reduction-in-force plan to eliminate most of the 800 full-time jobs at VOA. This came after she had terminated roughly 500 contract employees. Based on the proposal to Congress, Voice of America would be reduced to just 18 employees and 81 staffers across USAGM.
Still, just last week, Lake frantically recalled roughly 75 employees to staff up Voice of America’s Farsi news division, as well as the network’s Pashto and Dari services, following Israel’s missile strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Those divisions had previously been stripped down to just a handful of journalists in an effort to demonstrate to the federal courts that the administration was fulfilling its statutory mandate. “History is being made, and VOA Persian news service is rising to the occasion to cover it,” Lake boasted to Fox News.
On Friday, however, the vast majority of Voice of America employees received a “special notice of reduction in force” letter from Lake. The Trump aide then followed that up by releasing a letter announcing that the USAGM had “completed a significant workforce reduction” that eliminated 85 percent of the agency’s personnel.
“Today, we took decisive action to effectuate President Trump’s agenda to shrink the out-of-control federal bureaucracy,” Lake wrote in the letter. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America – part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”
She added: “American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that's been riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste. That ends now.”
Letter from Kari Lake announcing that 85 percent of the workforce of Voice of America has now been reduced following Friday's layoffs. (USAGM)
The layoffs will leave USAGM with roughly 200 employees, and the terminations will take effect on September 1. In her announcement, Lake noted that employees who had been placed on paid leave in March had been given opportunities to take the “Fork in the Road” offer – which would pay staffers through the end of September if they resigned.
Patsy Widakuswara, VOA’s White House Bureau Chief who is suing the administration alongside VOA Press Freedom Editor Jessica Jerreat and USAGM Director of Strategy and Performance Assessment Kate Neeper, is calling on Congress to intervene.
“USAGM has launched its mass layoff of VOA and USAGM staff, including some of our Persian colleagues they called back to work just last week to cover Israel’s war with Iran. Their last day on the payroll will be Sept 1, Labor Day,” she said in a statement to The Independent.
“This move follows USAGM’s firing of more than 500 contractors last month. It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” Widakuswara continued.
Expressing concern that authoritarian regimes are “flooding the global information space with anti-American propaganda” now that Voice of America is silenced, she urged Congress “to continue its long tradition of bipartisan support for VOA” amid the ongoing lawsuit.
Meanwhile, all three plaintiffs in the lawsuit confirmed that they have now received reduction-in-force notices from Lake.
Voice of America parent terminates over 600 more staff in likely death knell
Kari Lake announced on Friday that 639 employees from Voice of America and its parent agency would be terminated effective September 1. (Getty Images)
In its latest attack on Voice of America, the Trump administration sent out layoff notices to hundreds of the government-funded news network’s employees, making official what had long been expected after all contractors were fired last month.
This latest move, which eliminates 639 full-time staffers from VOA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, the network’s parent bureau, comes just days after USAGM Senior Adviser Kari Lake called back dozens of employees for the network’s Persian-language service amid Israel’s conflict with Iran.
A significant portion of the VOA Farsi staff recently brought back to work are included in Lake’s reduction-in-force order, two sources familiar with the matter told The Independent.
Since mid-March, the vast majority of VOA employees have been on paid administrative leave following President Donald Trump’s executive order calling for USAGM and the state-run media outlets it oversees to be gutted of all “non-statutory components and functions.” At the time, Trump called VOA “the voice of radical America” and accused it of peddling “anti-American” and liberal propaganda.
Lawsuits brought by VOA staffers and executives have sought to stop the administration’s efforts to effectively dismantle the network, claiming that the president didn’t have the constitutional authority. While a federal judge issued an injunction in April that would have allowed VOA employees to return to work, an appellate court stayed most of that ruling, leaving the majority of the staff in limbo.
In recent weeks, Lake brought back a skeleton crew to keep Voice of America staffed at a “statutory minimum,” a move that left those employees “angry most of the time” as the “amount of programming that’s being produced is not a credible replacement for what was on air before.” Additionally, Lake cut a deal with MAGA cable news channel One America News to become a content provider for VOA down the road.
Earlier this month, Lake – a former local TV anchor and twice-failed Arizona political candidate – sent Congress a letter detailing her reduction-in-force plan to eliminate most of the 800 full-time jobs at VOA. This came after she had terminated roughly 500 contract employees. Based on the proposal to Congress, Voice of America would be reduced to just 18 employees and 81 staffers across USAGM.
Still, just last week, Lake frantically recalled roughly 75 employees to staff up Voice of America’s Farsi news division, as well as the network’s Pashto and Dari services, following Israel’s missile strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Those divisions had previously been stripped down to just a handful of journalists in an effort to demonstrate to the federal courts that the administration was fulfilling its statutory mandate. “History is being made, and VOA Persian news service is rising to the occasion to cover it,” Lake boasted to Fox News.
On Friday, however, the vast majority of Voice of America employees received a “special notice of reduction in force” letter from Lake. The Trump aide then followed that up by releasing a letter announcing that the USAGM had “completed a significant workforce reduction” that eliminated 85 percent of the agency’s personnel.
“Today, we took decisive action to effectuate President Trump’s agenda to shrink the out-of-control federal bureaucracy,” Lake wrote in the letter. “Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America – part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.”
She added: “American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that's been riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste. That ends now.”
Letter from Kari Lake announcing that 85 percent of the workforce of Voice of America has now been reduced following Friday's layoffs. (USAGM)
The layoffs will leave USAGM with roughly 200 employees, and the terminations will take effect on September 1. In her announcement, Lake noted that employees who had been placed on paid leave in March had been given opportunities to take the “Fork in the Road” offer – which would pay staffers through the end of September if they resigned.
Patsy Widakuswara, VOA’s White House Bureau Chief who is suing the administration alongside VOA Press Freedom Editor Jessica Jerreat and USAGM Director of Strategy and Performance Assessment Kate Neeper, is calling on Congress to intervene.
“USAGM has launched its mass layoff of VOA and USAGM staff, including some of our Persian colleagues they called back to work just last week to cover Israel’s war with Iran. Their last day on the payroll will be Sept 1, Labor Day,” she said in a statement to The Independent.
“This move follows USAGM’s firing of more than 500 contractors last month. It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” Widakuswara continued.
Expressing concern that authoritarian regimes are “flooding the global information space with anti-American propaganda” now that Voice of America is silenced, she urged Congress “to continue its long tradition of bipartisan support for VOA” amid the ongoing lawsuit.
Meanwhile, all three plaintiffs in the lawsuit confirmed that they have now received reduction-in-force notices from Lake.
Voice of America parent terminates over 600 more staff in likely death knell
Reuters
Fri, June 20, 2025
FILE PHOTO: The Voice of America building in Washington
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The parent agency of Voice of America said on Friday it had issued termination notices to over 639 more staff, completing an 85% decrease in personnel since March and effectively spelling the end of a broadcasting network founded to counter Nazi propaganda.
Kari Lake, senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said the staff reduction meant 1,400 positions had been eliminated as part of U.S. President Donald Trump's agenda to cut staffing at the agency to a statutory minimum.
"Reduction in Force Termination Notices were sent to 639 employees at USAGM and Voice of America, part of a long-overdue effort to dismantle a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy," Lake said in a statement.
She said the agency had been "riddled with dysfunction, bias, and waste."
Lake said the move meant USAGM now operated near its statutory minimum of 81 employees. She said 250 employees would remain across USAGM, Voice of America, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which transmits news into communist-run Cuba. She said none of OCB's 33 employees had been terminated.
The move likely marks an end to VOA, which was founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, operated in nearly 50 languages and reached 360 million people a week, many living under authoritarian regimes.
In May, nearly 600 VOA contractors were dismissed.
Some Republicans have accused VOA and other publicly funded media outlets of being biased against conservatives, and called for them to be shuttered as part of wider efforts to shrink the government.
Another USAGM station, Radio Free Asia, which has already been reduced to skeleton staffing, said in a staff email on Friday that it was implementing additional furloughs in its human resources, ordinance, journalist security, and research, training & evaluation teams.
Various court cases are in train against the USAGM cuts.
(Reporting by David Brunnstrom, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Hundreds of Voice of America reporters fired as Trump guts outlet
Max Matza - BBC News
Sat, June 21, 2025
[Getty Images]
Hundreds of journalists for Voice of America (VOA) - most of its remaining staff - have been fired by President Donald Trump's administration, effectively shutting down the US-funded news outlet.
The administration said the layoffs were because the agency was "riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste".
Steve Herman, VOA's chief national correspondent, called the dismantling of the outlet, which was set up during World War Two to counter Nazi propaganda, a "historic act of self-sabotage".
Among those axed were Persian-language reporters who had been on administrative leave, but were called back to work last week after Israel attacked Iran.
According to the Associated Press news agency, the Persian reporters had left the office on Friday for a cigarette break, and were not allowed to re-enter the building after the termination notices went out.
"Today, we took decisive action to effectuate President Trump's agenda to shrink the out-of-control federal bureaucracy," Kari Lake, whom the president appointed to run VOA, said in a statement on Friday announcing the layoffs of 639 employees.
In total, more than 85% of the agency's employees - about 1,400 staff - have lost their jobs since March.
She noted that 50 employees would remain employed across VOA, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and VOA's parent company, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
A statement issued by three VOA journalists who have been suing to stop the elimination of the network said about the latest firings: "It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world."
The move had been expected since March when Trump ordered VOA, as well as USAGM, which oversees VOA and funds outlets such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia, to be "eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law".
The agencies have won acclaim and international recognition for their reporting in places where press freedom is severely curtailed or non-existent, from China and Cambodia to Russia and North Korea.
But Dan Robinson, a former VOA news correspondent, wrote in an op-ed last year that the outlet had become a "hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media".
Trump's criticisms of VOA come as part of his broader attacks against the US media, which studies suggest American news consumers view as highly polarised.
The president has also urged his fellow Republicans to remove federal funding for National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
'Discarded like a dirty rag': Chinese state media hails Trump's cuts to Voice of America
Judge halts Trump's shutdown of Voice of America
Kari Lake claws back $17M for ‘mission support’ amid deep cuts to US-funded media
Anthony Adragna
Sat, June 21, 2025
POLITICO
The United States Agency for Global Media is reprogramming more than $17 million in various agency funds already subject to deep cuts for unspecified “mission support,” according to a memo from senior adviser Kari Lake obtained by POLITICO on Friday.
Lake, a close ally of President Donald Trump, has looked to slash USAGM — which either directly controls or gives grants to media outlets that report predominantly for international audiences — as part of the administration’s campaign to slash the size of government and punish media outlets it views as hostile toward the president.
The memo says the agency is taking back $7.2 million from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, $3 million from Radio Free Asia, $5 million from the Middle East Broadcasting Networks and $2.18 million from the Open Technology Fund. Lake’s letter says the funds will go toward “mission support” without providing further details.
Lake’s letter offered a briefing to senators on the financial transfers.
The move comes as Lake on Friday delivered termination notices to hundreds of employees at Voice of America, which lies under the control of the USAGM — an overall cut of roughly 85 percent of her agency’s workforce.
“Kari Lake’s actions are a gift to Iran’s Supreme Leader, the [Chinese Communist Party] and the Kremlin,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) in a post Friday about the job cuts. “Her decimation of US broadcasting leaves authoritarian propaganda unchecked by US backed independent media and is a perversion of the law and congressional intent.”
Lake’s decision also landed as a federal district court judge on Friday ordered the agency to fund the Open Technology Fund, a technology nonprofit promoting global internet freedom, as intended by Congress for the rest of the fiscal year.
Lake’s agency did not respond to a request for comment on Friday night, nor did the offices of Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the top Senate appropriators for the agency.
Congress won’t have to wait long for answers, though. The House Foreign Affairs Committee is scheduled to receive testimony from Lake on June 25.
‘Dark day for truth’: Kari Lake slashes U.S. global media agency by 85%
CK Smith
Sat, June 21, 2025
SALON
Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images
Once a Cold War-era powerhouse for U.S. diplomacy, the U.S. Agency for Global Media has been gutted under a Trump executive order — slashing 1,400 jobs, or 85% of its workforce — in a move Kari Lake calls a win for taxpayers and critics warn is a death knell for press freedom.
Lake, senior adviser to the agency, said the cuts fulfill the March 14 directive from President Donald Trump to shrink the federal workforce and eliminate non-essential operations. “This is a decisive action to shrink the out-of-control federal bureaucracy,” Lake said Friday, calling USAGM “bloated, unaccountable” and plagued by “dysfunction, bias and waste.”
Only 250 employees remain across USAGM and its affiliates, including Voice of America, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and Radio Free Asia. The latest round included 639 layoff notices, following earlier buyouts and retirements. No OCB employees were terminated, though staffing was capped.
Lake also terminated a $250 million lease for a Pennsylvania Avenue media facility, which the agency says lacked proper studio space. She is set to testify before the House Foreign Affairs Committee next week regarding what the agency describes as years of “self-dealing and national security failures.”
But journalists and press advocates say the move silences independent reporting and undermines U.S. credibility abroad. “This spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism,” said VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., called it “a dark day for the truth.”
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