Trump administration to fire most of Voice of America's staff
The Trump administration will axe 532 jobs at Voice of America (VOA) and the agency that oversees it, it was announced on Aug. 30.
Kari Lake, acting CEO of the Agency for Global Media (USAGM), said on a post on social media that the move will "to help reduce the federal bureaucracy, improve agency service, and save the American people more of their hard-earned money."
But the move is just the latest in a long-running battle between VOA, an outlet that U.S. President Donald Trump has accused of being "radical."
VOA was established during World War 2 in an effort to counter Nazi propaganda.
In February, the outlet employed approximately 1,300 staff. Since then, programming has been slashed, with broadcasts now limited to just four languages.
The latest layoffs will leave VOA with just 108 staff members.
The decision to dismantle VOA has met legal challenges.
On April 22, a U.S. federal judge ordered the administration to reinstate all employees and contractors, ruling that the mass dismissal likely violated U.S. law. However, a federal appeals court overturned that order, allowing the layoffs to proceed.
The Trump administration temporarily reinstated several staff members from VOA's Persian-language service amid the escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. But at least two of those individuals also received layoff notices on June 20, according to the NYT.
Trump has long criticized U.S.-funded media organizations, criticizing them over their coverage of the U.S. president, and often referring to them as "fake news."
In total, the networks reach an estimated 427 million people across the world and employed thousands of employees across the United States, Cuba, Europe, and Asia.
The Trump administration has previously cut thousands of federally-funded positions, with the cuts directly impacting support for Ukraine.
In February, the Trump administration terminated the employment of top officials from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) after they attempted to prevent representatives from Elon Musk’s DOGE from accessing restricted areas.
