Kari Lake targets press as senior adviser for U.S. Agency for Global Media

July 22, 2025 | Lake ends visa program for VOA journalists, criticizes editorial independence

June 25, 2025 | Kari Lake urges Congress to eliminate Voice of America, gut oversight agency

July 22, 2025 | Lake ends visa program for VOA journalists, criticizes editorial independence

Kari Lake, senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, announced during an interview with the conservative channel Real America’s Voice on July 22, 2025, that she was ending the visa program used to hire foreign journalists employed by Voice of America.

“Over the past couple of decades, especially the past 15 years, this agency has turned into telling anti-American story,” Lake said. “This agency started hiring non-Americans — people from foreign countries — many people, hundreds upon hundreds, from countries that are hostile to America.”

Lake went on to say that she was ending the J-1 visa program and cutting the workforce of the agency by 85%. “Our goal is to shut the entire agency down, as per the instructions of President Trump.”

She asserted on the social platform X that “foreign influence has infiltrated the Voice of America,” baselessly claiming that some staffers pose a security risk. But VOA has recruited journalists from all over the world for decades, The Atlantic reported, who may now face persecution, imprisonment or worse in their home nations as a result of their work in the U.S.

Lake also lamented the news outlet’s editorial independence from the administration.

“With the editorial firewall at Voice of America, they could go completely rogue, and the President couldn’t pick up the phone and stop them. There are no guardrails. There’s no editorial control,” Lake wrote. “This is a rogue, taxpayer funded agency, and we need to ensure that it’s no longer doing damage to America.”

During an Aug. 25 hearing over litigation concerning her efforts to dismantle the federally funded broadcaster, U.S. District Court Judge Royce Lamberth ordered Lake to submit to questioning under oath by Sept. 15, saying that her repeated failure to provide requested information was “verging on contempt of court.”

Lake has persisted in her multipronged efforts to dismantle the international broadcaster, most recently by attempting to fire its director, Mike Abramowitz. Lamberth ruled Aug. 28 that the action was unlawful, citing statutes that require a majority vote from the bipartisan board tasked with limiting political influence on federally funded newsrooms.

“This dispute arises from yet another twist in the saga of the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s efforts to dial back the operations of Voice of America contrary to statutory requirements,” Lamberth wrote.

He also granted an injunction barring Abramowitz’s removal without approval from the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, which has not had a quorum since President Donald Trump removed six of its members in January.

June 25, 2025 | Kari Lake urges Congress to eliminate Voice of America, gut oversight agency

Kari Lake, senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, testified before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on June 25, 2025, and urged Congress to gut Voice of America and the other federally-funded news organizations that she oversees.

During the hearing, which was titled “Spies, Lies, and Mismanagement: Examining the U.S. Agency for Global Media’s Downfall,” Lake said in her opening statement that USAGM was unsalvageable, later referring to it as “a rotten piece of fish.”

“Within days in my role as senior adviser, it became increasingly clear that reform was nearly impossible,” Lake said. “The agency was incompetent and mismanaged and deeply corrupt, politically biased and, frankly, a serious threat to our national security.”

Lake went on to defend proposed cuts to the agency and the global news organizations it funds, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Radio y Televisión Martí. She also called on members of Congress to amend the laws mandating VOA’s existence.

“What is going out on VOA airwaves — it’s outrageous, and it has to stop,” she said, adding that much of the reporting being published by VOA and other USAGM-funded outlets is “biased” and “corrupt.”

Lake’s statements mirrored those made by President Donald Trump since at least 2023. In a late-night executive order on March 14, 2025, Trump eliminated all USAGM functions not required by law. The following day, the White House posted a news release that railed against “the Voice of Radical America” and the director of VOA confirmed that nearly the entire staff of the news organization had been suspended.

A federal judge ordered the administration to halt efforts to fire or furlough employees at the news agency at the end of March, and another judge reversed VOA’s closure April 22, calling it “arbitrary and capricious.”

Lake appealed the ruling two days later, blocking operations at the outlet from restarting and, days before the June Congressional hearing, issued hundreds of termination notices to VOA and USAGM staff.

The layoffs were rescinded June 27 after errors were discovered that could have derailed efforts to dismantle the organization, according to The New York Times.

No news has been published on VOA’s website since March.