On Saturday, March 15, more than 1,300 VOA employees were sent to executive leave during their executive leave, while President Donald Trump’s executive order terminated funding from two other U.S.-backed news organizations. The order was signed Friday, directing the United States Global Media Agency (USAGM) and six other federal agencies to extend their operations to a legal minimum.
VOA director Michael Abramowitz said the decision effectively silenced the 83-year-old broadcaster, which operates in nearly 50 languages and reaches millions of dollars worldwide.
“I feel deeply saddened that this is the first time in 83 years that the voice of American legend has been silent,” Abramovitz said in a LinkedIn post. “It has played a major role in the fight for freedom and democracy around the world.”
The cuts also affected Free Radio Europe (RFE/RL) and Radio Asia (RFA), two services known for providing independent news in authoritarian countries such as Russia, China and North Korea. The move has been widely criticized by press freedom advocates and foreign officials who warned that closing these platforms could incite oppressive regimes.
Jan Lipavsky, Czech Foreign Minister, described RFE as a “beacon” for people under totalitarian rule.
He wrote on X: “From Belarus to Iran, from Russia to Afghanistan, the RFE and the United States voices are one of the sources of freedom for the few people without freedom.”
The Washington National News Club also condemned the decision. “For decades, the American voice has provided independent journalism with fact-based journalism to audiences around the world, often where press freedom does not exist,” said its president Mike Balsamo.
Meanwhile, Trump loyalist and VOA director nominee Kari Lake defended the decision, calling Usagm a “huge decay and burden on American taxpayers.” She promised to narrow the agency to its legal minimum, adding that it was “irrescueable.”
Elon Musk, a technology billionaire who has been overseeing the government’s rulings on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), dismissed concerns, joked that X temporarily renamed Usagm to “the Department of Occupational Propaganda” (DOPE).
Trump’s executive order also affects institutions including federal mediation and reconciliation services, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. The White House statement justified the layoffs, saying they would prevent taxpayers from funding “radical propaganda.”
