US President Donald Trump has intensified his criticism of major media outlets, calling for the elimination of the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and labelling CNN and MSNBC as “illegal.”
The decision has led to Voice of America (VoA) employees being placed on administrative leave and the termination of funding for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, news services that provide independent reporting in authoritarian countries.
On Friday, Trump signed an executive order instructing USAGM and six other federal agencies to be downsized to their legally mandated minimum operations. The move, according to the White House, aims to eliminate “radical propaganda” funded by taxpayers.
However, press freedom advocates warn that the cuts significantly weaken independent journalism in regions where government-controlled media dominate.
Mass layoffs at Voice of America and foreign broadcast services
According to Reuters, more than 1,300 VoA employees were placed on administrative leave on Saturday, crippling the agency’s operations across nearly 50 languages. Michael Abramowitz, VoA’s director, described the situation as an unprecedented blow to the network’s mission.
“I am deeply saddened that for the first time in 83 years, the storied Voice of America is being silenced,” he said in a post on LinkedIn.
VoA’s parent agency, USAGM, has also terminated grants to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, both of which serve as vital sources of independent journalism in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, China, and North Korea.
The cuts come despite warnings that shutting down these services would empower authoritarian governments by reducing access to unbiased news.
Founded in 1942 to counter Nazi propaganda, VoA now reaches an estimated 360 million people weekly. The USAGM, which oversees VoA and other US-funded foreign broadcasters, employs roughly 3,500 people and had an $886 million budget in 2024, according to its most recent report to Congress.
William Gallo, VoA’s Seoul Bureau Chief, revealed on Sunday that he had been locked out of all company systems and accounts. “All I’ve ever wanted to do is shoot straight and tell the truth, no matter what government I was covering. If that’s a threat to anyone, so be it,” he wrote on Bluesky.
Kari Lake, the Trump-aligned former broadcaster nominated to run VoA, described USAGM as a “giant rot” and “a burden to the American taxpayer.” She stated that the agency was “not salvageable” and vowed to shrink it to its legal minimum size.
Press access restrictions and growing tensions with the media
The cuts to USAGM come amid growing tensions between the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) and the administration. The White House recently announced that it would take over press pool selection from WHCA, a move that has been widely criticised as an effort to control coverage of the president.
Additionally, the Associated Press (AP) has been barred from the Oval Office and Air Force One, after refusing to adopt the term “Gulf of America” in place of “Gulf of Mexico.” In response, Mike Balsamo, president of the National Press Club, warned that the White House’s actions undermined America’s commitment to a free press.
“For decades, Voice of America has delivered fact-based, independent journalism to audiences worldwide, often in places where press freedom does not exist,” he said.
Press freedom organisations have also condemned the administration’s decisions. Reporters Without Borders described the move as a threat to press freedom, while Radio Free Asia (RFA) President Bay Fang called the cancellation of RFA’s funding “a reward to dictators and despots, including the Chinese Communist Party, who would like nothing better than to have their influence go unchecked.”
According to Reuters, the dissolution of USAGM is part of a broader effort led by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce federal spending and bureaucracy. Since taking office, Musk’s agency has cut more than 100,000 federal jobs, frozen foreign aid, and cancelled thousands of government programs and contracts.
Musk made light of the USAGM cuts on social media, joking that while the agency was being wound down, it had been “temporarily renamed the Department of Propaganda Everywhere (DOPE).”
Alongside USAGM, Trump’s executive order has targeted several other agencies, including the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Minority Business Development Agency, aiming to reduce their operations to their statutory minimums.
With these latest measures, the administration’s push to reshape government-funded journalism and restrict media access appears to be accelerating, raising concerns among journalists, press freedom advocates, and international observers about the future of independent reporting in the US and abroad.
