Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia see funding cut
Conservatives have been critical of the news services
March
15 (Reuters) - - More than 1,300 Voice of America employees were placed
on leave on Saturday and funding for two U.S. news services that
broadcast to authoritarian regimes was terminated, one day after
President Donald Trump ordered the gutting of the government-funded media outlet's parent and six other federal agencies.
Michael
Abramowitz, Voice of America's director, said nearly his entire staff
of 1,300 journalists, producers and assistants had been put on
administrative leave, crippling a media broadcaster that operates in
almost 50 languages.
Kari Lake is going to clean up the waste in this government media group.
KARI LAKE GOES TO WORK: Exposes Massive Waste at USAGM and Suspends, Locks Out More Than 1,000 Employees at Voice of America
Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top
conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine
Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the
Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans
for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit
received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty
Awards.
Kari Lake is already exposing the fraud at the USAGM and how Biden officials tried to hide their misdeeds.
MAGA Firebrand Kari Lake was recently named as the Trump Administration’s senior adviser to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM). This agency oversees Voice of America, the government’s international news network.
Lake is well known across America for competing in two consequential Arizona elections that were fraught with fraud. In both races, she saw her victory ripped away from her following Election Day.
The uber-popular conservative was later named to lead a prominent government organization for President Trump, a field in which she has excelled and has decades of experience.
Lake wassworn into her new positionearlier this month. The Gateway Pundit obtained an email that Lake sent to all agency staff, in which she declared a return to the goal of “working efficiently and honestly to cover this consequential moment in our nation’s history.”
Kari also released a video online describing the waste and fraud she discovered already at the US Agency for Global Media.
Kari Lake:
Hi, America. I’m here in Washington, DC, as Senior Advisor at United States Agency for Global Media. I’m working on behalf of you and President Trump and his administration, and I have been on the job for a couple of weeks now, and I’m horrified by some of the things I’m learning about this agency. I’m sitting here on the 13th floor of a shiny, brand new, beautiful skyscraper building that is costing you, the taxpayer, a fortune. The Biden administration folks who were running this agency before, right before before they left office, signed a brand new lease for this building, a 15-year lease that’s going to cost the taxpayer nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.
Here’s the kicker. They already have a building that they’re located in that is paid off, that they could have renovated or updated, but they chose instead to get us into a lease that’s costing the taxpayer a fortune. I know that every one of you out there is working hard and parting with your tax dollars You’re expecting it to be used wisely, not misused and mismanaged. I can tell you that this building is a colossal waste of money. Take a look at what’s in this building.
Fancy conference rooms with wall-to-wall windows.
There’s There are six conference rooms, at least, that’s what I’ve counted in this building.
There are four bridges to nowhere, massive waterfalls, Italian marble finishes everywhere, leather furnishings, all of this being paid for by American taxpayer. And it’s not the only thing we’ve seen. We are seeing grants where they’ve taken the grants and they’ve changed the contracts just days before we got in here to make it less transparent for us to find out where the money is going and what’s happening with these grantees. It was an obvious, obvious sign that they wanted to keep us from finding out anything that we could possibly go in and change and make better for the American taxpayer. I want you to know I’m hard at work here in Washington, DC. I’m working to make sure that we are not being built out of our hard-earned dollars, and we’re going to make sure we’re doing everything we can to cancel contracts that can be canceled, save money, downsize, and make sure there’s no misuse of your dollars.
And… Kari Lake also locked out more than 1,000 employees at Voice of America.
Journalists showed up at the Voice of America today to broadcast their programs only to be told they had been locked out: Federal officials had embarked on indefinite mass suspensions.
All full-time staffers at the Voice of America and the Office for Cuba Broadcasting, which runs Radio and Television Martí, were affected — more than 1,000 employees. The move followed a late Friday night edict from President Trump that its parent agency, called the U.S. Agency for Global Media, must eliminate all activities that are not required by law.
In addition, under the leadership of Trump appointees, the agency has severed all contracts for the privately incorporated international broadcasters it funds, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.
The termination notices for grants for the funded networks, two of which were reviewed by NPR, carried the signature of Trump’s senior adviser Kari Lake, whom he placed at USAGM, not the agency’s acting chief executive. Lake does not appear in her current job to have the statutory authority to carry out that
Join us and Chelsea Clinton at the U.N. (or virtually) on 3/19
As the United Nations launches the 69th session of the Commission on the Status of Women – the U.N.’s largest annual gathering on gender equality and women’s empowerment – we at Unchained At Last are launching a hybrid side event alongside Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic.
Join us and Chelsea Clinton, along
with our global allies to talk about successes and setbacks in the
global effort to ban child marriage and achieve gender equality by year
2030. Despite agreements like U.N. Sustainable Development Goal 5.3 and
the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, much of the world still
falls short in protecting girls from forced and child marriage. Ending
these human rights abuses cannot wait another 30 years. We will feature
experiences from countries which have made recent progress towards
prohibiting child marriage under the laws as well as analyze contexts
where countries are lagging behind or are debating proposals to erode
women’s and girl’s rights.
No Child Left a Bride: Successes & Setbacks in the Global Effort to End Child Marriage
A Hybrid Side Event 69th Session of the United Nations’ Commission on the Status of Women 19 March 2025 10:00-11:15 am ET | 7:00-8:15 am PT | 2:00-3:15 pm GMT
Featuring:
Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation
Houry Geudelekian, Past Chair, NGO CSW/NY
Sarah Hendriks, Director of Policy, Programme & Intergovernmental Division, UN Women
Hon. Mayra Jiménez, Minister of Women of the Dominican Republic
Dr. Isata Mahoi, Minister of Gender and Children’s Affairs for Sierra Leone
Dr. Joan Nyanyuki, Executive Director, African Child Policy Forum
Saba Lishan, Coordinator of African Partnership to End Violence Against Children, African Child Policy Forum
Fraidy Reiss, Founder/Executive Director, Unchained At Last
Mona Sinha, Global Executive Director, Equality Now
Sponsored by:
Permanent Mission of the Republic of Sierra Leone to the United Nations
Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations
Unchained At Last
NGO CSW/NY
Equality Now
Clinton Global Initiative
Girls Not Brides
UN Women
African Child Policy Forum
IN PERSON:
United Nations Conference Building, Economic and Social Council Chamber
405 E 45th St, New York, NY 10017
About Commission on the Status of Women Each year the U.N. hosts CSW, the U.N.’s largest annual gathering on gender equality and women’s empowerment,
in New York City. Representatives of member states, U.N. entities and
approved non-governmental organizations from around the world are
invited to attend. The 69th
session of CSW will take place 10 to 21 March 2025, on a hybrid basis,
with a main focus on the review and appraisal of the implementation of
the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action and the outcomes of the
23rd special session of the General Assembly.
