A month ago, Elon Musk called for Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to be shut down, tweeting: "It's just radical left crazy people talking to themselves while torching $1B/year of US taxpayer money."
It's in keeping with Musk's DOGE initiative, prompting the administration to slash jobs, cut programs and even seek to sever funds for contracts already in progress throughout the federal government.
In the weeks since, Trump administration officials have asserted greater control over the Voice of America's parent, the U.S. Agency for Global Media. Several DOGE aides have been sent to the agency, which has commenced an initial batch of firings of probationary employees at Voice of America. And leaders at other U.S.-funded networks that broadcast overseas fear Musk's grander wish — for a full shutdown — may be coming true.
Those outlets include such storied networks as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, started up to counter Communist propaganda.
These institutions, unlike the government-owned Voice of America, are separate not-for-profit entities. Yet they are fully funded by the U.S. government through the same federal parent agency.
Were the government to withhold money for any appreciable length of time, "We would bleed out," an official at one of the international broadcast networks said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing fear of reprisal.
(NPR has no affiliation with the U.S. Agency for Global Media and typically receives about 1% of its annual budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.)
This account is based on interviews with 12 people with knowledge of developments at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which is the federal agency that oversees all these international broadcasters and distributes money to them. All spoke on condition they not be named for fear of recrimination, given the backdrop of government firings and budget cuts. The agency did not reply to two requests for comment for this story.
Soft diplomacy versus hardline regimes
The networks' mission is to deliver news coverage and cultural programming to places where a free press is threatened or doesn't exist. They are also designed as a form of soft diplomacy, by modeling independent journalism that incorporates dissent from government policy. Together, according to the agency, the networks reach 420 million people in 63 languages and more than 100 countries each week.
That comes with diplomatic complications. The reporting of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has vexed autocratic-minded leaders in Russia and Hungary as well as their allies. The networks' journalists have been imprisoned or detained in Russian-controlled Crimea, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Russia itself.
The network's Farda news service reports intensely on life in Iran and is a thorn in the side of the regime there. The Iranian government, a sworn enemy of the U.S. and frequent irritant to President Trump, is allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In December, the regime sentenced former Radio Farda reporter Reza Valizadeh to 10 years in prison for "cooperating with a hostile government."
"Clearly, this regime feels threatened by the forces of freedom, including independent journalism," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty chief Steve Capus said at the time. "It's why Radio Farda's mission of providing uncensored news and other programming to the Iranian people is more important than ever. Journalism is not a crime."
Similarly, Radio Free Asia's reports on the oppression of Uighur Muslims by Chinese authorities helped to bring their plight to international attention. In 2020, North Korean officials executed the owner of a fishing fleet for secretly listening to broadcasts by Radio Free Asia while at sea, the network reported. Authorities brought in 100 of his peers to watch the execution as a warning of the dangers of tuning in.
Networks monitoring aid programs
According to six people with knowledge, officials at the international broadcasters are closely monitoring deep cuts at the U.S. State Department to international relief efforts for which money has already been contracted. (Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty did not respond to NPR's requests for comment.)
They also see parallels to the financial crisis at the National Endowment for Democracy, a nonprofit organization that awards grants to strengthen democracy in 100 countries. Like the networks, it receives a direct appropriation annually from Congress.
The endowment is suing the Trump administration, saying the White House has unlawfully withheld nearly $240 million in congressionally approved funding, the bulk of it already obligated.
No concrete proof of such broad intentions at USAGM has publicly surfaced. The question of whether the agency could cut off funding for the networks is further complicated by two countervailing facts: Congress directly appropriates money for them, granting the agency only a small degree of latitude to redirect funds; on the other hand, Congress has not passed a budget for the current year in progress, and the current stop-gap measure is set to run out on Friday.
Trump officials push to overhaul agency
Trump has announced he wants Kari Lake, a former Phoenix local TV news anchor turned two-time unsuccessful MAGA political candidate, to be the next director of Voice of America; hers, by law, is not a presidential appointment. She legally must await the Senate confirmation of Trump's pick to lead USAGM — the conservative media critic Brent Bozell III. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has not yet set a date for a confirmation hearing. Then Lake has to be approved by a bipartisan board overseeing the network; the White House fired its members upon Trump taking office.
In the meantime, Lake is helping to lead the agency as a senior adviser to Trump. She has made conciliatory remarks to the journalists and networks in her official communications, while signaling changes and cuts may be in store.
"I understand the challenges faced by those who cover news both in front of and behind the camera, and I have immense respect for the men and women who do the job with honesty and integrity," Lake wrote in a memo to staff obtained by NPR.
"Sadly, journalism is experiencing dark days right now," she continued. "The public has lost almost all trust in the media. For those reading this — it is critical we recognize our agency is funded by hardworking American taxpayers, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet."
"I am committed to quickly reforming and modernizing the agency into something the American people are willing to support," she wrote.
In outside statements, Lake has been blunter. "We won't become Trump TV," she said at the Conservative Political Action Conference last month, "but it sure as hell will not be 'TDS TV.' You can find all the Trump Derangement Syndrome that you want over on CNN, MSNBC, PBS, 60 Minutes, The Washington Post and The New York Times."
That said, journalists throughout the agency's networks say she has not met to talk substance or her plans with their newsrooms or senior executives. (They spoke on condition of anonymity given a climate of fear.)
Following the DOGE game plan
Following the DOGE playbook, the U.S. Agency for Global Media has demanded that agency and VOA employees give weekly updates of their accomplishments, in correspondence reviewed by NPR. Several VOA staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity due to fears of repercussions, say there have been offers of buyouts, which they believe will be followed by broader layoffs.
In addition, the agency has also fired nine journalists at Voice of America who held probationary status. The agency also fired two journalists from the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which is similarly fully owned by the U.S. government and runs Radio and TV Martí. The agency did so over the objections of Voice of America's senior management, according to three people with knowledge of events, speaking on condition they not be named for fear of reprisal. Voice of America did not reply to requests for comment.
Ostap Yarysh, a host and correspondent for the Ukrainian language service of the Voice of America, was among those fired. He tells NPR that he was pulled in a few hours before his show last Thursday and told not to do any more work. Yarish says the network hired him as a contractor in 2019, but promoted him in 2023 to a full-time employee. He says he was still in the last legs of a two-year probationary period, and hence vulnerable.
"I was given no notice, basically," Yarysh says. "There's speculation this was political retribution. I don't think that was the case. It was just a probationary employee directive and they got everyone."
He said the U.S. Agency for Global Media first tried to fire him two weeks earlier but Voice of America leaders objected, designating him as an employee critical to its mission. This time, Yarysh says, he received a termination notice saying he had not been designated as mission-critical - despite what news executives at Voice of America said.
Return of a Project 2025 author
During the final year of Trump's first presidential term, his appointee as chief executive of the U.S. Agency for Global Media similarly tried to upend it and its networks. Many of the efforts of then-CEO Michael Pack were overturned in court and found to have broken laws.
Pack's acting vice president of legal, compliance and risk was cited by a 2023 federal investigative report as having failed to observe federal law in several instances. That executive, Mora Namdar, wrote the chapter on USAGM and international broadcasting in Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation's suggested blueprint for Trump's second term. Though Trump disavowed it during the campaign, many of his administration's actions have closely hewed to its suggestions.
In her chapter for Project 2025, Namdar called for consolidation of many of the foreign language services, stricter scrutiny of visas for journalists who are citizens of other countries, and the scrapping of many "firewall" provisions intended to protect the journalists who work for the networks from political meddling.
In fall 2020, Pack assigned two political appointees at the agency to investigate senior White House correspondent Steve Herman; it was decried as a witch hunt and found by a federal judge to be an unconstitutional breach of the firewall's free speech protections. Similarly, in early 2021, veteran reporter Patsy Widakuswara had been shifted from her assignment after pressing then Secretary of State Mike Pompeo over the January 6th siege of the U.S. Capitol.
Two weeks ago, Herman, was suspended and is being once more investigated over his social media posts of articles critical of the Trump administration. The network also reassigned Widakuswara from her beat covering the White House.
Both moves were said to have been done by the network's news leaders, not political appointees at the agency; VOA's director, Michael Abramowitz is a veteran editor at the Washington Post and former head of Freedom House, the free speech and journalism advocacy organization.
As of this month, Namdar appears to be back on board, spotted last week at USAGM, according to four people with knowledge who spoke on condition they not be named, citing fear of retribution. Namdar is said to be advising Lake.
USAGM did not respond to NPR's questions about Namdar's role at the agency.
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