Kari Lake, the Special Adviser for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, announced that Voice of America (VOA) is ending its contracts with The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
Lake announced on Friday that the USAGM, which funds VOA, would end its “expensive and unnecessary newswire contracts,” in a post on X.
“I moved today to cancel expensive and unnecessary newswire contracts for US Agency for Global Media, including tens-of-millions of dollars in contracts with The Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse,” she said.
“USAGM is an American taxpayer funded News Organization with an 83-year history. We should not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is—with nearly a billion-dollar budget, we should be producing news ourselves,” the former Arizona Republican candidate for governor said.
“And if that’s not possible, the American taxpayer should demand to know why,” Lake said, adding the move will save taxpayers tens of millions of dollars annually.
She spoke about the cuts in an interview with Newsmax before her post on X, in which she said investigators have found “a lot of nonsense that the American taxpayer shouldn’t be paying for.”
“Today, I started the process of terminating the agency’s contracts with the Associated Press, Reuters, & the Agence France-Presse. This will save taxpayers about 53 million dollars. The purpose of our agency is to tell the American story. We don’t need to outsource that responsibility to anyone else,” she said.
In December, Lake made her future in politics known when she spoke at a conference.
For some time, people thought Lake might run for office in a different state after losing the race for the open senate spot to U.S. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). Some Republicans thought Lake, born and raised in Iowa, should run against Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) in the Republican primary.
It was also rumored that Lake would run for governor of Arizona again since she lost by a small margin to current governor Katie Hobbs in a controversial race in 2022. A second run for governor seemed less likely after Trump appeared to back conservative Karrin Taylor Robson in a Truth Social post.
While speaking at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest conference, Lake was asked about the reports and if she would be interested in running for office again.
“I’m going to Washington, D.C., to help President Trump. That’s what I’m going to do,” Lake told the crowd.
“We’re not where we need to be on elections. And that’s one of the reasons I don’t want to run again, to be honest. Why put yourself through that torture again?” she added.
Earlier that month, President-elect Donald Trump announced that Lake will serve as the director of Voice of America, the international broadcasting media network funded by the federal government.
In a post on his Truth Social website, Trump said that Lake would work with the next head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media “to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media. Kari was a beloved News Anchor in Arizona, which supported me by record margins, for over 20 years.”
“VOA was established in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda with unbiased news and information. It’s funded by the government through the U.S. Agency for Global Media. It is governed by a longstanding charter that legally requires the VOA to report ‘accurate, objective, and comprehensive’ news abroad,” Axios reported. “VOA broadcasts in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly global audience of more than 354 million people.”
Lake thanked Trump on X, adding, “I am honored that President Trump has asked me to lead the Voice of America. @VOANews is a vital international media outlet dedicated to advancing the interests of the United States by engaging directly with people across the globe and promoting democracy and truth.”