Organized opposition to the controversial work that Senior Advisor of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) Kari Lake has undertaken at the behest of President Donald Trump to "Rightsize" the USAGM and the Voice of America (VOA) which operates beneath it was dealt devastating blows this week with a revealing report from Just The News Monday and a bombshell interview on "Real America’s Voice" with hosts John Solomon and Amanda Head Tuesday.
Nearly 100 of the 400 foreign employees hired by the agency from 2009 to 2024 under J-1 visas came from rival nations such as China, Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, and Somalia, with some of the Chinese nationals having direct ties to Chinese Communist Party government-backed media outlets.
In June, Lake told Congress in testimony to the House Oversight Committee that the agency she was directed to oversee is “rotten to the core.”
"This place is rotten. It’s rotten to the core," she told the Committee. "President Trump has asked me to go in and help clean it up, and he’s also issued an executive order to reduce this agency down to its mandate, to what is mandated, statutorily required. That’s exactly what I’m doing. I don’t care if they attack me."
The attacks indeed came and were spearheaded by a group composed of newly terminated VOA staffers and contractors, branding themselves as “Save VOA,” formed in response to Lake’s rapid progress in “gutting” the agency, terminating a total of 584 employees across the board. Many of the terminated contractors and employees were foreign national J-1 visa holders.
Statement from Save VOA following mass termination of personal service contractors #SaveVOA pic.twitter.com/onfNVe0R37
— savevoa (@savevoanow) May 15, 2025
READ MORE: Ex-Voice of America Employee Indicted for Death Threats Against MTG, Family, and Staff
Silence, Please!—Team Trump Comes for Voice of America
In a May statement that has aged rather badly, Save VOA lamented:
Today is an incredibly difficult day as USAGM terminates many of our contractors who have devoted themselves to fulfilling VOA's congressionally-mandated mission to deliver factual, balanced and comprehensive journalism to the world.
Among those affected are J-1 visa holders who will be forced to leave the country within 30 days. Several of these journalists come from countries where they could be arrested or worse because of their reporting for VOA.
Two months later, reporting from Just the News revealed that the hiring of some 400 foreign journalists from 2009 up until the 2024 close of the Biden Administration raised significant red flags for the Trump Administration, particularly focusing on the liberal use of the J-1 cultural exchange visa to accomplish it.
VOA HIRED CCP-LINKED JOURNALISTS
— Real America's Voice (RAV) (@RealAmVoice) July 22, 2025
“Over…the past 15 years, this agency has turned into telling anti-American story. This agency started hiring non-Americans…hundreds from countries that are hostile to America...” - @KariLake@jsolomonReports @AmandaHead pic.twitter.com/M1C2zzQVS5
During the Tuesday interview with Solomon and Head, Lake told the co-hosts, “Over…the past 15 years, this agency has turned into telling anti-American story. This agency started hiring non-Americans…hundreds from countries that are hostile to America...”
Lake noted:
Your reporting is showing that the J-1 visa hires, where we're hiring people from other countries, we're bringing them in to be journalists at Voice of America… You're reporting uncovered that many of them who came from China, a nation hostile to America, had already worked for the CCP the China state media. And then they came over to work for VOA where they continued to push pro-CCP propaganda at the expense of the taxpayer to the detriment of America. We are ending that program. I am ending the J-1 program.
We're cutting the workforce of the agency by 85% and our goal is to shut the entire agency down as per the instructions of President Trump.
Spearheading the administration’s efforts to bring the agency in line with U.S. interests, Lake has led the disclosure of documents from an investigation launched by President Trump’s 2020-appointed CEO of USAGM, Michael Pack.
According to the report:
The security concerns first raised during Pack’s review of the agency were left unaddressed for years as the program endured over successive administrations. Compounding those concerns, some of the Chinese nationals hired by VOA under the J1 visa program appear to have direct ties to Chinese state-backed media operations, according to a Just the News review of their public profiles and employee records.
The outlet found, “VOA and the USAGM hired at least three Chinese nationals who worked for Chinese Communist Party-controlled state-owned media outlets before or after their work with the United States media agency, public social media profiles show.”
Steven Richards, writing for Just the News, provided detailed biographies of two such employees: Yiyi Yang, Ziyang Wang, who were previous employees of Xinhua News Agency, China Global Television Network, and Phoenix TV, all of which are wholly or majority-owned by the Chinese state. He also noted the curious case of Kaishuo Zhao, a Chinese national who reportedly departed USAGM in 2022 after a five-year stint only to join China Global Television Network’s US-based operation: CGTN America.
Where "Save VOA" asserted, “Several of these journalists come from countries where they could be arrested or worse because of their reporting for VOA,” Lake’s assessment and revelations from the report suggest that they’ll likely be welcomed as heroes, with cushy jobs at CGTN and Xinhua. Perhaps they’ll even earn The Medal of the Republic, the People’s Republic of China’s equivalent of our Presidential Medal of Freedom, for their work forwarding the CCP agenda in America.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
Help us continue to expose their left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member