Kari Lake said the Trump administration is putting the United States government on a diet through spending cuts, and that she will contribute by slashing the United States Agency for Global Media budget.
Lake, President Donald Trump’s nominee to be director of the Voice of America, is currently serving as special adviser to Voice of America’s parent organization, United States Agency for Global Media. Appearing on Steve Bannon’s podcast “The War Room,” she said she’s working to scale back the agency to its “bare minimum”, in alignment with the president’s recent executive order aimed in part at lowering federal spending on media.
United States Agency for Global Media is a global media agency designed to “inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy,” according to its website. Several entities are overseen by United States Agency for Global Media, including Voice of America, the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, and Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
According to Lake, programming supported by the agency does not always serve its pro-American purpose.
“The focus was supposed to be talking and telling the American story, and they haven’t been doing that,” she said. “I recently tuned in and saw a graphic on Voice of America that showed President Trump with a swastika over his face. That’s not what our taxpayer-funded media should be putting out.”
Lake explained that the cuts are not solely about editorial content but about a broader mission to prevent bankruptcy and rein in government spending.
“We’ve got to get this debt under control, Steve,” she added, “or we won’t have a country anymore.”
Many government agencies—such as United States Agency for Global Media—are created by Congress, so Trump cannot dismantle them through an executive order. However, funding for the agencies can be cut back to a legal minimum.
Lake is working with lawyers to determine the statutory minimum for the various grantees of United States Agency for Global Media to scale back funding.
She noted that once money is funneled to United States Agency for Global Media’s grantees, there is a lack of transparency. “We don’t know exactly what they’re doing with that money. … So, we just want to have more transparency. They’re trying to give us less transparency and they’re suing us right now to stop us from cutting off the spigot to them.”
When asked about the lawsuits, Lake explained that several employees of Voice of America and other United States Agency for Global Media agencies are suing to prevent reduced funding and layoffs.
“We are going to fight these lawsuits,” Lake promised. “We believe we’re in the right here and we will continue to fight them.”