President-elect Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he will appoint Kari Lake, an election denier and purveyor of conspiracy theories who is deeply loyal to Trump, as director of Voice of America (VOA), a U.S.-funded news service for international audiences.
Lake lost both a gubernatorial race and a Senate election in Arizona within the span of the past two years. She claimed in both contests, without any evidence whatsoever, that her losses were due to election fraud — echoing Trump’s false claims of election fraud after he lost the 2020 presidential election to President Joe Biden.
In his post on Truth Social, Trump insisted that Lake would “ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY,” deriding other news media as being “fake news” — a complaint he frequently lobbies against the press after journalists publish reports on his corruption and wrongdoings.
Trump’s post suggests that he will attempt to use the VOA to promote propaganda on his behalf.
Importantly, the position of VOA director is not appointed by the president — instead, a seven-person panel called the International Broadcasting Advisory Board (IBAB) picks the person who heads the news agency. Six members of IBAB are selected by presidents to four-year terms, with the seventh member being the Secretary of State in an ex officio role. All seven members require Senate confirmation, though in the Secretary of State’s case, their approval is usually focused on other functions of their office, rather than the management of media produced by the U.S. government.
Furthermore, the six members who are not the Secretary of State must be politically divided evenly — no more than three of the six can belong to the same political party, per the law that established IBAB.
All of these conditions mean that, while Republicans will technically comprise a majority of the board once Trump’s Secretary of State choice is sworn in, it will still be very difficult for Lake to become head of the VOA.
However, there is another workaround Trump can take: passing a new law that gives himself greater powers to interfere with VOA’s work and independence, including by giving the president the ability to directly appoint the agency’s director. Indeed, current law regulating the VOA and IBAB came about due to allegations of abuse during the first Trump administration. With Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, that law can be repealed and replaced with one that gives Trump the authority to appoint whomever he wants.
Trump’s post didn’t allude to that action being considered, but the news of Lake as his choice to lead VOA has worried some employees of the agency nonetheless.
“We’re hoping that the guardrails will hold,” a VOA employee told CNN.
Journalists were quick to criticize Trump’s Truth Social post, noting that Lake would use VOA to promote far right propaganda and conspiracy theories.
Lake is “an unhinged conspiracy theorist who lashes out at the press, hobnobs with far-right and antisemitic extremist outlets,” Media Matters for America senior fellow Matthew Gertz wrote on the social media site X.
If Trump is successful at getting Lake appointed, it will “drive out the responsible journalists who work there and destroy the mission of VOA,” Tom Nichols of The Atlantic wrote in a Bluesky post.
“Putting Kari Lake at the head of Voice of America is not only an attack on journalism and the duty to tell the truth, it’s an assault and an insult to every person around the world who turns to VoA to look up to America,” journalist Steven Beschloss said.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.