The Independent

05/07/2025

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.

“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.

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.”

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.