Trump order cuts funding for Voice of America, other institutes, agencies

President Donald Trump’s Friday order instructed the U.S. Agency for Global Media to make as many cuts to its resources and services as are possible under the law. The president deemed the global media agency and six other entities unnecessary and ordered that they reduce each their functions and personnel to the maximum extent allowed under federal law, according to the executive order.

The order placed a majority of workers at the public news outlet Voice of America on paid leave, the outlet’s director Mike Abramowitz told the BBC. The government created VoA to combat Nazi propaganda during World War II and continued broadcasting American news internationally across nearly 50 languages, according to VoA. The Agency for Global Media’s liquidation also cut funding to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, another pro-democracy broadcasting group. Cutting these funds is a win for America’s enemies that will only make them stronger, according to Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty President and CEO Stephen Capus. Nearly 50 million people in isolated communities across the world depend on these broadcasts for the truth about America and the outside world, he added.

Why would Trump shut down a pro-democracy international outlet? Trump’s order came after investigators uncovered corruption and security violations within the U.S. Agency for Global Media, according to Trump’s senior advisor for the agency, Kari Lake. Spies and terrorist sympathizers infiltrated the agency, according to a Sunday statement from Lake. The agency also spent hundreds of millions of dollars to fund fake news companies, she alleged. Last week, Lake also posted a video showing what she said was a fancy Washington D.C. high-rise for which the U.S. Agency for Global Media had recently signed a 15-year lease for a quarter of $1 billion. Lake said the agency already had a headquarters that was paid off that could simply have been renovated for less money. This agency is now a burden to taxpayers and is simply unsavable, Lake said.

What other entities are being liquidated? Trump’s order also stripped all the funding and resources it legally could from the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, the Smithsonian-associated Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Additionally, the order cut funding for the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, and the Minority Business Development Agency.