An executive order from President Donald Trump landed a blow against “radical propaganda” that included impacting the funding of a particularly egregious media outlet.
Since his return to the White House, the GOP leader has been taking the battle against the establishment to all fronts while also actively trimming the fat of the bloated federal government. Friday, a new order did both “to the maximum extent” possible, as Trump’s action began the dismantling of the Voice of America news agency.
Speaking to the order that impacted VOA’s parent, the United States Agency for Global Media, the president’s Special Advisor to USAGM Kari Lake posted on X, “There’s nothing more powerful than the truth…News outlets have used that power irresponsibly to lecture, indoctrinate, & work against America’s best interest…The people’s trust in the 4th Estate is broken…We need to rebuild that trust. That means we have a lot more work to do.”
There’s nothing more powerful than the truth
News outlets have used that power irresponsibly to lecture, indoctrinate, & work against America’s best interest
The people’s trust in the 4th Estate is broken
We need to rebuild that trust. That means we have a lot more work to do
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 15, 2025
Per the president’s order, “…the non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
Along with USAGM, those entities included the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund and the Minority Business Development Agency.
The White House followed up with more specifics on VOA with an article titled “The Voice of Radical America” that explained how the president’s order “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”
Having directed VOA employees to check their emails following the order, Lake, whom Trump wanted to see named head of the agency, issued a press release that remarked in part, “From top-to-bottom, this agency is a giant rot and burden to the American taxpayer — a national security risk for this nation — and irretrievably broken. While there are bright spots within the agency with personnel who are talented and dedicated public servants, this is the exception rather than the rule.”
An example of the behavior of the news agency included directing employees’ language regarding Hamas, advising them against referring to the terrorists as such after the Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel unless using a direct quote.
Other allegations accused the news agency of aligning with Russian and Chinese propaganda in addition to running a July 2020 story that was considered overly favorable to then-former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.
In 2022, the American Accountability Foundation filed a lawsuit claiming that VOA had “been infiltrated by anti-American, pro-Islamic state interests and that the message of VOA had been compromised in a manner that was biased toward the Islamic state factions in Iran.”
Addressing his employer of 34 years, VOA’s former White House correspondent Dan Robinson wrote in a November op-ed for The Washington Times, “I have monitored the agency’s bureaucracy along with many of its reporters and concluded that it has essentially become a hubris-filled rogue operation often reflecting a leftist bias aligned with partisan national media. It has sought to avoid accountability for violations of journalistic standards and mismanagement.”
As to other taxpayer-funded outlets like NPR and PBS, Lake noted that neither were under her purview before snarking, “While I would be happy to go in there & introduce journalistic standards, I doubt they’ll invite me in anytime soon.”
I get asked this a lot, so I figured I’d clarify.
While taxpayers inexplicably help fund both @NPR & @PBS, neither of these organizations is within my purview
While I would be happy to go in there & introduce journalistic standards, I doubt they’ll invite me in anytime soon.
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) March 16, 2025
Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn't researching current events and their impacts, you'll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.
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