President Trump on Monday appointed Kari Lake, a fierce ally of the president who had led the administration\u2019s efforts to shutter Voice of America and other federally funded news groups, as the next ambassador to Jamaica.<\/p>\n
Her appointment, if confirmed by the Senate, would end her tumultuous time at the parent agency for federally funded news groups that broadcast to countries with limited press freedom, such as China, Russia and Iran. Under Ms. Lake\u2019s leadership, the U.S. Agency for Global Media tried and failed<\/a> to fire hundreds of Voice of America journalists and to cut funding for other news groups after facing setbacks in court and in Congress.<\/p>\n Voice of America remains severely diminished from its earlier presence, broadcasting only in a handful of languages including Persian, Korean and Chinese, often airing less than an hour of news service a day, except for its service to Iran.<\/p>\n In March, a federal judge voided Ms. Lake\u2019s actions<\/a> as the global media agency chief, ruling that she was appointed illegally as the interim leader. That ruling effectively nullified nearly all of the actions the Trump administration took to dismantle V.O.A., the news group that was founded in 1942 to combat Nazi propaganda and broadcast to more than 360 million people every week in 49 languages until early 2025.<\/p>\n The Trump administration did not appeal the judge\u2019s ruling that found Ms. Lake\u2019s appointment illegal. The 60-day deadline to appeal passed as of last week.<\/p>\n Congress also repeatedly rejected Mr. Trump\u2019s budget request that aimed to defund Voice of America and other federally funded news groups like Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty. A budget bill that Congress passed in February, for instance, included about $200 million for Voice of America<\/a> along with hundreds of millions of dollars for other news groups, reducing its budget by a quarter but upending Mr. Trump\u2019s wishes.<\/p>\n Kate Neeper, a director at the global media agency who was put on paid leave in 2025 and joined a lawsuit to stop the dismantling of V.O.A., said Ms. Lake\u2019s departure confirmed that V.O.A. journalists and its support staff prevailed against the administration\u2019s blitz.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a concession to that victory,\u201d Ms. Neeper said in an interview about Ms. Lake\u2019s new appointment. \u201cKari Lake was not able to dismantle the agency for lots of reasons, so they\u2019ve decided to have her do something else.\u201d<\/p>\n Ms. Lake said in a social media post<\/a> that she was \u201chonored to continue serving in this historic administration.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI look forward to strengthening the partnership between our nations, advancing America\u2019s interests abroad, and building on the deep friendship shared by the American and Jamaican people,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n After the judge ruled her appointment invalid in March, Ms. Lake continued serving at the media agency as its deputy chief executive.<\/p>\n The White House and the global media agency did not respond to requests for comment on Monday.<\/p>\n In a separate social media post on Monday night, Ms. Lake said she would continue serving at the global media agency while the Senate considers her confirmation for the ambassadorship.<\/p>\n The court battle for the future of Voice of America continues. In March, the appeals court in Washington stopped V.O.A. journalists from quickly returning<\/a> to their posts, questioning whether a federal judge can directly order federal agencies on personnel matters.<\/p>\n Another set of V.O.A. journalists has sued the administration, accusing it of interfering with their editorial independence<\/a> stipulated in law.<\/p>\n In the complaint, one of the V.O.A. officials hired under Ms. Lake\u2019s leadership, Hui Jing, was said to have demanded \u201cloyalty\u201d to the Trump administration if reporters wanted to \u201ckeep their jobs.\u201d The lawsuit was filed after the Trump administration tried to give Mr. Trump\u2019s political appointees more control over operations<\/a> at two federally funded news groups, Radio Free Europe\/Radio Liberty and Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and hired an executive at Newsmax, a right-wing news channel, as the deputy director of V.O.A.<\/a><\/p>\n Patsy Widakuswara, Voice of America\u2019s former White House bureau chief who sued the administration after being put on paid leave in March 2025, said that despite Ms. Lake\u2019s planned departure, V.O.A. could still become \u201ca government mouthpiece.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOur fight was never about Kari Lake,\u201d Ms. Widakuswara said in a statement. \u201cIt\u2019s about keeping V.O.A. operational and free from political interference.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Trump on Monday appointed Kari Lake, a fierce ally of the president who had led the administration\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68073,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[5226,2048,13624,25387,422,2532,18,898,74,13623,17647],"class_list":{"0":"post-68072","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pete-hegseth","8":"tag-airport-security","9":"tag-airports","10":"tag-donald-j","11":"tag-homeland-security-department","12":"tag-hungary","13":"tag-leo-xiv","14":"tag-pete-hegseth","15":"tag-transportation-security-administration","16":"tag-trump","17":"tag-united-states-international-relations","18":"tag-united-states-politics-and-government"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116562812230681918","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68072","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68072"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68072\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68072"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68072"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68072"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}