Politics
‘Nonsense’: Kari Lake Announces Major Move Against The Associated Press
Kari Lake, the former Arizona candidate who has since taken up a prominent role in the Trump administration, announced on Sunday that its international media arm would be terminating contracts with the Associated Press and other “nonsense” media outlets she has previously accused of writing baseless hit pieces against the president.
Lake, who now serves as Special Adviser for the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said in a statement that Voice of America, a U.S.-funded initiative to disseminate pro-democracy media into developing nations, will no longer rely on reporting by the AP, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. Contracts between VOA and the outlets allowing for the republication of their articles will be canceled, she added.
USAGM and VOA are weighed down by “expensive and unnecessary newswire contracts” approved by former President Joe Biden during a 2024 request to increase the department’s budget, Lake stated, adding the contracts amount to “tens-of-millions of dollars.”
“USAGM is an American taxpayer funded News Organization with an 83-year history. We should not be paying outside news companies to tell us what the news is—with nearly a billion-dollar budget, we should be producing news ourselves,” Lake wrote in a statement obtained by the Daily Caller. “And if that’s not possible, the American taxpayer should demand to know why.”
During a meeting with USAGM staffers on Friday, Lake and her subordinates allegedly ordered the VOA to refrain from utilizing “wire service material for their reports.” Such inclusions are typically meant to cover news topics or areas of the globe where reporters are not present.
Speaking with Newsmax, Lake characterized the media contracts as “a lot of nonsense that the American taxpayer shouldn’t be paying for.”
“Today, I started the process of terminating the agency’s contracts with the Associated Press, Reuters, & the Agence France-Presse. This will save taxpayers about 53 million dollars. The purpose of our agency is to tell the American story. We don’t need to outsource that responsibility to anyone else,” Lake wrote on social media while highlighting the interview.
Lake, who ran for governor in 2022 and U.S. Senate in 2024, was tapped in March to serve in her current role where she has pledged to “streamline” an agency that many conservatives feel is top-heavy with initiatives and line items antithetical to President Trump’s agenda. Her cuts follow the total dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development where similar programming was brought to light.
The AP has been at the forefront of the Trump administration’s sparring with the Washington, D.C. press corps. In February, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced she would be revoking the outlet’s briefing credentials after its editors refused to use the term “Gulf of America” in reports.
Shortly afterward, a federal judge sided with the Trump administration in a lawsuit, saying the AP failed to demonstrate “irreparable harm” from being booted from the White House.
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