Lawmakers are trying to determine funding for the American-sponsored news outlets meant to permeate authoritarian regimes, but they’re in a tough spot: President Donald Trump and his top officials want to shut those outlets down entirely.
The U.S. Agency for Global Media “is not needed,” Kari Lake, a close Trump ally and senior adviser at the agency, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday. She described USGAM as “a serious threat to our national security” and complained that the news outlets it funds have hired “a shockingly high number of foreign nationals.”
Trump’s team has tried to dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media and cut off money for news organizations it funds. Those moves have faced legal challenges as well as opposition from some Republicans who see the work as vital.
“If the Voice of America’s not in our adversaries’ backyard, then we’re losing,” Rep. Michael McCaul, a Texas Republican, told NOTUS this week. “The Elon Musk strategy was to just shut everything down instead of reforming it. And so they shut everything down. Now they have to rebuild it.”
While the dispute has played out, many journalists who worked for Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe and Voice of America have been furloughed or laid off. The furloughs caused leaders to rush to bring back Farsi-language staff who had been sidelined at Voice of America when a conflict between Israel and Iran broke out earlier this month.
McCaul said rebuilding is urgent: “We have a situation where — we all saw it after these strikes — it’s a perfect opportunity to get communications inside and outside of Iran. And without those two programs, we can’t do that.”
Rep. Young Kim, a California Republican, brought up the furloughs at Wednesday’s hearing.
“I worry about the U.S. government’s ability to win in the information domain during the next crisis, which could be just around the corner,” she told Lake. “We saw a last-minute scramble to bring back VOA Farsi-speaking staff.”
Lake disputed that characterization: “I wouldn’t say ‘scramble,’” she responded. “When breaking news happens, it’s all hands on deck.”
“We can do it with a smaller staff,” Lake said. “This newsroom should have been downsized a long time ago.”
During the hearing, Lake frequently clashed with Democrats. At one point, she bristled at a series of questions from Rep. Pramila Jayapal about whether she supports democracy or authoritarianism.
“I understand that you’re trying to get a fundraising video here,” Lake told Jayapal.
Democrats, Lake added, “care more about a lot of other countries than America.”
When Jayapal asked Lake, who lost Arizona’s gubernatorial race in 2022 but refused to concede, if she agrees that accepting the results of free and fair elections is critical to a functioning democracy, Lake responded that “we need free and fair elections, and sadly we don’t have them.”
“I was brave enough to fight our shoddy elections, and the courts have not caught up,” she told Rep. Greg Stanton, another Democratic lawmaker, during the hearing.
Lake complained about Democrats’ questions about her political campaigns and losses, describing Stanton’s questioning as “complete insanity.”
Democrats repeatedly shot back.
“I feel like I am suffering through a propaganda war,” Rep. Madeleine Dean, a Pennsylvania Democrat, told Lake of her testimony. “You are a propaganda machine for the Trump administration.”
But the three hours members spent hearing from Lake didn’t seem likely to change anything about the problem they face this year: how to fund an agency that still enjoys bipartisan support, as Trump wants to shut it down. It may escalate into a messy battle within the Republican Party.
Kim, the California Republican who on Wednesday pressed Lake about the agency’s readiness, told NOTUS before the hearing that these outlets “provide information that is critically important for the people in repressive regimes.”
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, a Florida Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee, told NOTUS he wants to approve more funding for USAGM, although he is open to reforms.
“No blank checks,” he said, but “there is some utility to do it the right way.”
Some Republicans don’t see any need for USGAM, though.
“We spend $2 trillion a year more than we take in, and we’re going to have to ask ourselves what’s in the best interest of taxpayers,” Rep. James Comer of Kentucky told NOTUS. “There’s plenty of private media entities out there.”
Rep. Brian Mast, chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also questioned how effective the outlets have been.
“Soft power — people always throw that around,” he said. “It’s only soft power if it results in actually being able to sway or convince.”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS.