The Trump administration has terminated 639 employees at Voice of America and its parent organization in the latest round of sweeping cuts that have reduced the international broadcasting service to a fraction of its former size.
The mass terminations announced Friday rounds out the Trump-led elimination of 1,400 positions since March and represents the near-complete dismantling of an organization founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, whose first broadcast declared: “We bring you voices from America.”
Just 250 employees now remain across the entire parent group the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), who operated what was America’s primary tool for projecting democratic values globally.
“For decades, American taxpayers have been forced to bankroll an agency that’s been riddled with dysfunction, bias and waste. That ends now,” said Kari Lake, Trump’s senior advisor to USAGM, in Friday’s termination announcement.
VOA once reached 360 million people weekly across dozens of languages, former USAGM CEO and director John Lansing told Congress in 2019. In March, the White House put out a statement calling the outlet “propaganda”, “leftist” and dubbed it “The Voice of Radical America”. One of the examples cited to justify that explanation was VOA’s refusal to use the term “terrorist” to describe members of Hamas unless in statements, which falls in line with common and basic journalistic practice.
The cuts represent a major retreat from America’s Cold War strategy of using broadcasting to reach audiences behind the iron curtain. VOA had evolved from its wartime origins to become a lifeline for populations living under authoritarian rule, providing independent news and an American perspective in regions where press freedom is under assault.
The layoffs also came just days after VOA recalled Farsi-speaking journalists from administrative leave to cover the war between Israel and Iran, after Israel shot missiles at Tehran less than a week ago in the dead of night.
“It spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” said three VOA journalists, Patsy Widakuswara, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, who are leading legal challenges against the demolition, in a statement.
The agency’s folding began in March when Trump signed an executive order targeting federal agencies he branded as bloated bureaucracy, and VOA staff were placed on paid leave and broadcasts were suspended.
Lake, Trump’s handpicked choice to run VOA, had previously floated plans to replace the service’s professional journalism with content from One America News Network (OANN), a rightwing pro-Trump network that would provide programming without charge.
The sole survivor of the cull is the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which transmits into Cuba from Florida. All 33 employees there remain, according to the announcement.
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USAGM offered voluntary departure packages through what it termed a “Fork in the Road” program, providing full pay through September plus benefits. Some 163 employees accepted the buyouts rather than face involuntary termination, the agency said in a press release.
Federal courts have allowed the administration to proceed with the terminations while legal challenges continue for now.
The VOA cuts form part of Trump’s broader assault on the federal workforce, with tens of thousands terminated across agencies including the IRS, Social Security Administration, USAID, and departments of education, health and agriculture.
