Senior Trump adviser Kari Lake announced that she’d struck a deal with One America News to blast the right-wing channel’s pro-Trump propaganda out to the audience of Voice of America, making it clear what her intentions are for the government-run radio network.
“United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) is excited to announce a partnership with One America News Network (OAN) to provide newsfeed services to USAGM networks, including Office of Cuba Broadcasting (OCB), Radio Martí, and Voice of America (VOA),” Lake posted Tuesday on social media.
Noting that OAN was offering “their newsfeed and video service free-of-charge,” Lake acknowledged that while she may not have editorial control over VOA content in her role as senior adviser to the agency, she “can ensure our outlets have reliable and credible options as they work to craft their reporting and news programs.”
“And every day I look for ways to save American taxpayers money. Bringing in OAN as a video/news source does both,” she added. “OAN is one of the few family-owned American media networks left in the United States. We are grateful for their generosity.”
Lake did not immediately respond to requests for comment. OAN President Charles Herring, who also retweeted the Trump official’s post about the partnership, told The Independent that “Ms. Lake provided a complete summary.”
The new partnership with one of the president’s most loyal media outlets comes just days after Lake informed VOA staffers that she would be implementing a structured return-to-office plan.
“We look forward to working with you all,” she wrote on Friday to the workforce she had sidelined in March.
A day after Lake’s email, which was triggered after a federal judge halted the Trump administration’s efforts to shut down VOA, an appellate court complicated matters by pausing the lower court’s ruling. At the same time, the appeals court did state that it was leaving in place the judge’s ruling that the government must reinstate VOA’s “statutorily required programming levels.”
It would appear that Lake is looking to use OAN to fill that void now, which has left current and former staff enraged.
“Kari Lake providing One America News Network to our global audiences makes a mockery of the agency's history of independent non-partisan journalism,” former United States Agency for Global Media Chief Financial Officer Grant Turner told NPR.
“I don't think this complies with our statutory mandate and I don't think audiences will take to it,” he added. “The truth has a certain feel and audiences can sense that.”
VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara and press freedom editor Jessica Jerreat, who are part of the group of employees who sued Lake and the administration for violating the law by trying to shutter the network, also criticized the OAN announcement.
“Congress mandated VOA to report reliable and authoritative news, not outsource its journalism to outlets aligned with the president's agenda,” they said in a joint statement to The Independent. “VOA already has talented and professional journalists ready to tell America's story in line with the VOA Charter, but we are blocked from our own newsroom. That is why we will continue fighting for our rights in court.”
While the journalists remain sidelined following the president’s mid-March executive order, which prompted Lake to silence the network’s broadcasts and place the entire workforce on indefinite leave, staffers told NPR that the government has started bringing some VOA employees back.
“According to three Voice of America staffers who remain on forced leave, the agency asked a small number of journalists back on Tuesday. At the same time, contractors are beginning to receive termination notices,” NPR reported. Additionally, two sources corroborated this account to The Independent.
In the appellate court’s ruling, which Lake celebrated as a “BIG WIN,” two Trump-appointed judges said the lower court overstepped its bounds and that the dispute over VOA should be settled through administrative processes before any legal action is taken. The lone dissenter, an Obama-appointed judge, argued that it wasn’t within the president’s authority to dismantle VOA.
At the same time, the government has not objected to the lower court’s ruling that required VOA programming to be returned to the airwaves, an order that the appeals court upheld. It would now appear that Lake plans to use the MAGA conspiracy channel to fulfill those obligations.
OAN, which has been booted from nearly every major cable and satellite subscription service, was one of the biggest purveyors of Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was stolen from him.
The network has settled multiple defamation lawsuits over its promotion of falsehoods about the 2020 election, which includes voting software company Smartmatic, two election workers in Georgia, and a former executive for voting machine firm Dominion. OAN is still facing a defamation case from Dominion, which the outlet baselessly accused of rigging the election for Joe Biden.
Despite the network being nearly impossible to find on cable airwaves, OAN has seen its profile rise after Trump’s return to office. While its reporters have been featured more prominently in press briefings and gaggles at the White House, Matt Gaetz – the president’s disgraced initial pick for attorney general – serves as one of the channel’s primetime hosts.
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