The Trump administration is laying off more than 600 employees at Voice of America, a government-funded news outlet that provides news to other countries.
The White House confirmed the layoffs to the Washington Examiner. The move doesn’t come as a surprise, as Kari Lake, a top adviser to VOA’s parent agency, the United States Agency for Global Media, previously called for it to be gutted.
The layoffs will reduce VOA’s staff members to fewer than 200, under half what the organization had at the beginning of 2025. Those laid off have been placed on paid leave until Sept. 1, when their employment will be terminated.
Lake sent a letter to Congress earlier this month outlining a plan to leave VOA with 18 employees and strip the organization of anyone except “associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
In a May email, Lake wrote that she was working to help USAGM comply with President Donald Trump’s March 14 executive order to reduce the federal bureaucracy.
“In accordance with President Trump’s executive order dated March 14, we are in the process of rightsizing the agency and reducing the federal bureaucracy to meet administration priorities,” she wrote in an email on May 15. “We will continue to scale back the bloat at USAGM and make an archaic dinosaur into something worthy of being funded by hardworking Americans. Buckle up. There’s more to come.”
The White House has been critical of VOA, calling the organization the “Voice of Radical America” in Trump’s March executive order, which also said that the order “will ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda.”
VOA was founded in 1942 as a way for America to combat Nazi propaganda. Its unraveling has drawn criticism from those who believe it continues to serve a uniquely critical function today.
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Lake’s decision “spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” Patsy Widakuswara, a former Voice of America White House bureau chief who was placed on leave and is leading a lawsuit against Lake and the USAGM, said in a statement.
“Moscow, Beijing, Tehran, and extremist groups are flooding the global information space with anti-American propaganda,” Widakuswara said. “Do not cede this ground by silencing America’s voice.”