Arizona’s Kari Lake to lead Voice of America, Trump says

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday said that Arizona politician Kari Lake would serve as the new director of the state-sponsored broadcaster. Lake would be formally appointed to that position by the next head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, who Trump said he would announce soon. The federal agency reports to six bipartisan committees in the House and Senate, and its next leader would need to be confirmed by the Senate.

Why is Kari Lake getting this position? Lake worked as a news anchor in Arizona for two decades, Trump said. She would ensure that American values were transmitted across the globe fairly and accurately, the president-elect said.

Who is she? After anchoring at a Phoenix news station, she entered the political arena in 2021 with a gubernatorial bid. She lost by a slim margin but has yet to formally concede that election and has continued fighting the election results in court. The ardent Trump supporter alleged that election fraud or incompetence in Maricopa County led to her 2022 loss, despite several courts declaring the results authentic.

She ran for the U.S. Senate in November. She lost to Democratic candidate Ruben Gallego by about 2% of the vote, according to unofficial results from the Secretary of State’s office. She also has stopped short of conceding that race.

Lake campaigned for the Senate on plans to prioritize security on the U.S. southern border, protect the water sources of western states, and bolster the public education system. She also campaigned on her so-called Mama Bear initiative, a combination of pro-family policies including education transparency, tax cuts, and more police funding. She sided with former President Donald Trump’s take on abortion and supported individual states enacting their own policies on the issue. She spoke against pro-life legislation in Arizona earlier this year, slamming the state’s Supreme Court for upholding a law that protects nearly all unborn babies from abortion.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about how Trump is doubling down amid media criticisms of his defense secretary pick, Pete Hegseth.