Kari Lake, who is President Donald Trump’s choice to run the Voice of America, will become a senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the VOA.
The acting U.S. Agency for Global Media chief, Roman Napoli, announced Lake’s arrival in an email to the staff, VOA reported Friday, that read, “As senior adviser of the Trump administration, Kari will help USAGM implement the policies and strategies needed to streamline the agency, its networks, and its grantees.”
Napoli wrote that she “brings a wealth of experience in broadcast journalism, having spent more than two decades as an anchor and reporter in major media markets.”
Lake spoke about her plans for running the taxpayer-funded media outlet that reports news across the globe during her remarks last week at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland.
“We are fighting an information war, and there’s no better weapon than the truth, and I believe VOA could be that weapon,” Lake told the CPAC audience.
Lake was a journalist for three decades, winning two Emmy awards. She later ran unsuccessfully as the Republican nominee for both governor and U.S. senator in Arizona in 2022 and 2024 respectively.
Trump announced in December that he wanted Lake to lead the agency. The VOA director is not a presidential appointee but is selected by the International Broadcasting Advisory Board, whose members are confirmed by the U.S. Senate. Shortly after taking office, the Trump administration fired the board members who had served under President Joe Biden with plans to replace them.
Trump nominated L. Brent Bozell III, the president of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog group, to be the CEO of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees the VOA. The position requires Senate confirmation.
Amanda Bennett, a Biden appointee who headed the U.S. Agency for Global Media during the Biden administration, resigned after the new administration took over.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media oversees several government-funded media entities, including the Office of Cuba Broadcasting and the nonprofits Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia, the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Open Technology Fund, and Frontline Media Fund.
The agency’s mission is to promote American values of freedom and democracy abroad. But the agency has been plagued by security and financial scandals in recent years that have been uncovered by the agency’s inspector general and congressional investigations. The Trump administration has vowed to reform the agency, which has also been accused of left-leaning biased news reporting.
During her CPAC comments, Lake said that VOA “won’t become Trump TV,” but she said it also will not be another “Trump Derangement Syndrome” media outlet.