Latest news with #USAGM
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Remaining Voice of America employees expected to receive termination notice this week, Politico reports
Approximately 800 remaining full-time Voice of America (VOA) employees are expected to receive a notice of termination this week amid the Trump administration's funding cuts, Politico reported on May 28, citing four VOA employees. On March 15, Trump administration officials gutted funding for the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees VOA. In an email obtained by the Kyiv Independent in March, employees at VOA were instructed "not to enter USAGM premises" nor "access USAGM systems." Over 1,300 journalists, producers and support staff working at VOA were also placed on administrative leave. A senior VOA employee told Politico that USAGM-led layoffs would likely affect all staff, effectively shuttering operations. Earlier this month on May 15, about 600 contractors working for VOA received termination notices. VOA was founded in 1942, broadcasting in almost 50 languages around the world. Amid attempts by journalists to overturn the decision to gut funding, a U.S. federal judge on April 22 ordered the Trump administration to restore all employees and contractors at VOA, saying the administration's efforts to dismantle the outlet likely violated U.S. law. Last week, a federal appeals court overturned the decision, deciding that it would not intervene in the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the long-standing network. Trump has long criticized U.S.-funded media organization, criticizing them over their coverage of the U.S. president, and often referring to them as "fake news." Trump's crackdown against VOA has been celebrated by Russian propagandists, who welcomed the cuts to the network. Read also: Ukraine war latest: Moscow proposes next round of Russia-Ukraine talks on June 2 in IstanbulWe've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
Politico
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Politico
VOA prepares for shuttering
Presented by Welcome to POLITICO's West Wing Playbook: Remaking Government, your guide to Donald Trump's unprecedented overhaul of the federal government — the key decisions, the critical characters and the power dynamics that are upending Washington and beyond. Send tips | Subscribe | Email Sophia | Email Irie | Email Ben Voice of America may have been dealt its final blow. This week, all remaining VOA staff are expected to receive reduction-in-force notices, likely closing the book on the network founded 80 years ago to combat Nazi disinformation during World War II. Employees are anticipating termination notices to go out this week to all full-time staff at the embattled news network, according to four VOA employees familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss unannounced plans. Those terminations would affect the 800 remaining workers at the agency, after the Trump administration dismissed nearly 600 VOA contractors earlier this month. Employees have been advised by management to expect termination notices in the coming days. A senior VOA employee told POLITICO that based on his team's conversations with staff at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent company, the notices will likely affect all staff, effectively shutting down the international broadcasting network. Human resources employees at USAGM were told that RIF notices could go out as soon as today, according to another VOA employee. Thus far, USAGM has not responded to the union's demand to negotiate the RIFs. Two of the employees said refusing to do so would violate its collective bargaining agreement. A representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents VOA, declined to comment. USAGM, the Department of Government Efficiency and the White House did not respond to requests for comment. The expected move comes as VOA has largely remained dark since March 15, when President DONALD TRUMP signed an executive order calling for the network to be 'eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.' The president called VOA 'anti-Trump' and referred to it as 'The Voice of Radical America.' Its employees say they have stood by their commitment to reporting nonpartisan news. Since then, a few dozen VOA staffers have returned to office, which other staffers believe is an effort from USAGM senior adviser KARI LAKE — a staunch Trump ally — to maintain statutory minimums. The most recent article leading VOA's website is from March 15. Earlier this month, Lake announced that VOA would receive content from One America News Network, a far-right, pro-Trump network that has propagated conspiracies around Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election. VOA has taken the Trump administration to court in the months following the order, arguing that the agency's closure was unlawful under the First Amendment. But last week, a federal appeals court said it would not intervene in the administration's efforts to dismantle the network. The latest round of terminations could affect the ongoing litigation, but employees aren't optimistic. 'Even if somehow the organization can survive in some form, it would take years for our newsroom to overcome the trauma of being beaten up just for doing our job,' said VOA White House bureau chief PATSY WIDAKUSWARA, one of the plaintiffs in the case. 'I don't know how we can return to our mandate to report the facts without fear or favor.' Read the full story here. MESSAGE US — West Wing Playbook is obsessively covering the Trump administration's reshaping of the federal government. Are you a federal worker? A DOGE staffer? Have you picked up on any upcoming DOGE moves? We want to hear from you on how this is playing out. Email us at westwingtips@ Did someone forward this email to you? Subscribe! MARK YOUR CALENDARS: The Conversation with Dasha Burns arrives on Sunday, June 1 — and we're dropping a first look. Each week on her new podcast, Dasha will sit down with one of the most compelling — and sometimes unexpected — power players in Washington. This isn't just a podcast. It's a new kind of political interview show for a moment when politics feels more personal, more chaotic and more consequential than ever. Catch the video and audio trailer out this morning to see what Dasha's digging into this season. And subscribe to the podcast, wherever you listen or watch. POTUS PUZZLER Which NBA team did former President BARACK OBAMA say he would have wanted to play on if he went pro? (Answer at bottom.) Musk Radar FEELING LEFT OUT: ELON MUSK attempted to block an OpenAI-led deal last week to build one of the world's largest artificial intelligence data centers in Abu Dhabi, WSJ's DANA MATTIOLI, JOSH DAWSEY and ELIOT BROWN report. Musk warned officials at G42, an AI firm controlled by the brother of the United Arab Emirates' president, that their plan had no chance of Trump signing off on it unless his company, xAI, was included in the deal. Just before Trump's Middle East tour, Musk grew angry after finding out that his former business partner-turned-rival OpenAI CEO SAM ALTMAN was going to be on the trip and that a deal in the U.A.E. was in the works. Musk joined the trip, appearing alongside Trump in Saudi Arabia. The president and U.S. officials proceeded with the deal despite Musk's frustration with being omitted. White House officials said Musk did not want a deal that would benefit Altman, the Journal reported. White House press secretary KAROLINE LEAVITT said, 'This was another great deal for the American people, thanks to President Trump and his exceptional team.' DRAMAAAAA: Musk is not too pleased with the sweeping spending bill the House passed at Trump's urging, our GREGORY SVIRNOVSKIY reports. Musk said in an interview excerpt released Tuesday that the 'Big Beautiful Bill' contradicts the spending cuts made by DOGE. 'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,' the billionaire Tesla CEO said in an interview with CBS scheduled to run in full Sunday. 'I think a bill can be big, or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both, in my personal opinion.' Agenda Setting HEADED TO THE HILL: The White House is planning to send a small package of some of DOGE's cuts to Capitol Hill next week, our MEREDITH LEE HILL and JENNIFER SCHOLTES report. The planned transmission of the $9.4 billion 'rescissions' bill comes after a long debate over how to formalize DOGE's cuts, which have fallen well short of Musk's initial multitrillion-dollar wishes. Two Republicans granted anonymity to discuss the plans say the package will largely target NPR and PBS, as well as foreign aid agencies that the administration has already gutted. It comes amid an online campaign to rally support for codifying the DOGE cuts, pushed by Musk-friendly Republicans like Sen. MIKE LEE of Utah, Florida Gov. RON DeSANTIS and Rep. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE of Georgia. UNO REVERSE: The Trump administration is reversing dozens of office lease cancellations involving the Labor Department's Mine Safety and Health Administration after pressure from Labor Secretary LORI CHAVEZ-DeREMER and other Republicans, our NICK NIEDZWIADEK reports. The department notified MSHA staff Tuesday that the General Services Administration recently told the DOL that 34 properties are no longer being shuttered, according to three people familiar with the notification. Most of the MSHA leases appear to have been removed from DOGE's 'wall of receipts,' though it's unclear when that occurred. MORE VISA HITS: Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO announced today a new visa policy restricting access to foreign officials who he argues are complicit in censoring what Americans say online, our AMANDA FRIEDMAN, ANTHONY ADRAGNA and NAHAL TOOSI report. 'For too long, Americans have been fined, harassed, and even charged by foreign authorities for exercising their free speech rights,' Rubio wrote on X. 'Free speech is essential to the American way of life — a birthright over which foreign governments have no authority.' In the Courts LET US BACK IN: Former employees in the GSA's Technology Transformation Service, known as 18F, filed a class-action appeal today with the U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board, seeking to have their March removals declared unlawful and reversed. 'The government has to follow the rules—just like the rest of us. We believe the elimination of 18F was unlawful, in violation of safeguards that exist to protect a nonpartisan civil service,' the former employees said in a statement. 'The fact that we have been prevented from completing this work underscores that DOGE's actions are not in service of efficiency,' they added. YOU MAY PROCEED: A lawsuit alleging DOGE is illegally wielding power over government operations can move forward, an Obama-appointed judge ruled Tuesday, NPR's STEPHEN FOWLER reports. U.S. District Court Judge TANYA CHUTKAN's 42-page order in the lawsuit — filed by several Democratic attorneys general — denies a motion to dismiss the case. But she did grant a motion to dismiss Trump from being a defendant, finding 'the court may not enjoin the President in the performance of his official duties.' The plaintiffs argued that Musk, as a special government employee, has similar powers to Senate-confirmed Cabinet officials, an argument that Chutkan felt was sufficient to proceed. A WIN FOR DOGE: A team from DOGE can now access a Treasury Department system that controls trillions of dollars in federal payments, a judge ruled late Tuesday, ABC News' PETER CHARALAMBOUS reports. U.S. District Judge JEANNETTE VARGAS allowed four DOGE employees to access the Bureau of the Fiscal Service, which serves as the de facto checkbook for the government. In a victory for the Trump administration, Vargas said she would no longer require administration officials to get permission from the court before expanding access to other DOGE representatives. COURTS ARE GETTING BUSY: The Trump administration today moved to dismantle one of the government's longest-standing affirmative action programs, WaPo's JULIAN MARK reports. In a motion filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, the DOJ said that a Transportation Department program which carved out an estimated $37 billion for minority- and women-owned businesses violates the equal protection clause of the Constitution. If the judge approves the proposed settlement, the Disadvantaged Business Enterprise Program will be prohibited from awarding contracts based on race and sex. The case was brought in 2023 by two contracting businesses with white owners alleging they lost out on jobs when the agency began awarding contracts through the 'largest, and perhaps oldest affirmative action program in U.S. history.' WHO'S IN, WHO'S OUT PACK YOUR THINGS: A senior leader at the Interior Department's Bureau of Land Management was escorted out of agency headquarters Tuesday after POLITICO reported that he opposed staffing directions from a former DOGE appointee, our BEN LEFEBVRE reports. MIKE NEDD, BLM's deputy director for administration and programs, was at the agency for nearly three decades. His departure is the latest personnel upheaval at the bureau, which is considered instrumental to the Trump administration's fossil fuel production goals. Nedd opposed carrying out directives signed by STEPHANIE HOLMES, a former DOGE staffer who is now embedded as Interior's acting chief human capital officer. Holmes' May 2 memo instructed employees to stop doing 'detail' work — temporarily filling vacant positions — and return to their official positions. What We're Reading The Trump Presidency's World-Historical Heist (The Atlantic's David Frum) 'He Is Ohio': DeWine Pitches an Alternative to Ramaswamy (POLITICO's Jonathan Martin) A Missouri Town Was Solidly Behind Trump. Then Carol Was Detained (NYT's Jack Healy) We Made a Film With AI. You'll Be Blown Away — and Freaked Out. (WSJ's Joanna Stern and Jarrard Cole) POTUS PUZZLER ANSWER Despite being a Chicago Bulls fan, Obama said in 2018 that he would want to play for the San Antonio Spurs, a franchise built on smart players and the visionary leadership of GREGG POPOVICH, who recently stepped down as coach. 'They're smart, they're well-run, they're focused on team,' Obama said. 'They treat everybody in the organization with respect, and that is the kind of organization that I want to be a part of … If you look at what they've built … It's just a smart, well-run operation with a good culture.' Popovich, a Trump critic, was flattered to hear the praise. 'I'd have to do a background check on him, though, because I've heard some things he's done in the past aren't very good,' he joked.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump to Fully Shutter Key News Agency as Legal Battle Rages On
Donald Trump is planning to kill Voice Of America and replace it with a MAGA propaganda machine. The remaining 800 employees at the federally funded, award-winning newsroom are expecting to receive termination notices as soon as Wednesday, multiple unnamed sources told Politico. This would effectively shutter the agency, following the roughly 600 VOA employees who were fired earlier this month. In March, it appeared that the Trump administration was attempting to interfere with the organization's journalistic independence, suspending one of its top reporters for relaying others' criticism of the president, and reassigning VOA's veteran White House bureau chief to a different beat. Later that month, Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the agency that oversees VOA, the U.S. Agency for Global Media, or USAGM, altogether, as part of a wider reduction in force throughout the federal government. The move sparked a lawsuit from journalists, federal workers, and their unions alleging that USAGM had not fulfilled its duty to protect the freedom of the press or maintain a separation of powers. Further, by conducting a mass reduction in force, USAGM may have potentially violated its collective bargaining agreement with its employees. A representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, representing VOA employees, declined to comment to Politico. Kari Lake, a Trump acolyte serving as a senior adviser to the USAGM, announced earlier this month that the agency was planning to partner with the pro-Trump One America News Network to provide its right-wing newsfeed to the outlets VOA oversees.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Termination notices expected to go out to all remaining Voice of America employees this week
All remaining staff at Voice of America are expected to receive reduction-in-force notices this week, likely closing the book on the network founded 80 years ago to combat Nazi disinformation during World War II. Employees are anticipating termination notices to go out this week to all full-time staff at the embattled news network, according to four VOA employees familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss unannounced plans. Those terminations would affect the 800 remaining workers at the agency, after nearly 600 VOA contractors were dismissed by the Trump administration earlier this month. Employees have been advised by management to expect termination notices in the coming days. A senior VOA employee told POLITICO that based on his team's conversations with staff at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent company, the notices will likely affect all staff, effectively shutting down the international broadcasting network. Human resources at USAGM were told that RIF notices will likely go out as soon as Wednesday, according to another VOA employee. Thus far, USAGM has not responded to the unions demand to bargain RIFs, which two of the employees said would be a violation of its collective bargaining agreement. A representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents VOA, declined to comment on the record. USAGM, the Department of Government Efficiency and the White House also did not respond to requests for comment. The expected move comes as VOA has largely remained dark since March 15, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for VOA to be 'eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,' along with several other agencies and offices. Trump has claimed that the network is 'anti-Trump' and referred to it as 'The Voice of Radical America.' Its employees say they have stood by their commitment to reporting nonpartisan news. Since then, a few dozen VOA staffers have returned to office, which staffers believe is an effort from USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake — a staunch Trump ally — to maintain statutory minimums. The most recent article leading VOA's website is from March 15. Earlier this month, Lake announced that VOA would receive content from One America News Network, a far-right, pro-Trump network that has propagated conspiracies around Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election. VOA has taken the Trump administration to court in the months following the order, arguing that the agency's closure was unlawful under the First Amendment. But last week, a federal appeals court said it would not intervene in the administration's efforts to dismantle the network. The latest round of terminations could affect the ongoing litigation, but employees aren't optimistic. 'Even if somehow the organization can survive in some form, it would take years for our newsroom to overcome the trauma of being beaten up just for doing our job,' said VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, one of the plaintiffs in the case. 'I don't know how we can return to our mandate to report the facts without fear or favor.'
Politico
11 hours ago
- Politics
- Politico
Termination notices expected to go out to all remaining Voice of America employees this week
All remaining staff at Voice of America are expected to receive reduction-in-force notices this week, likely closing the book on the network founded 80 years ago to combat Nazi disinformation during World War II. Employees are anticipating termination notices to go out this week to all full-time staff at the embattled news network, according to four VOA employees familiar with the situation granted anonymity to discuss unannounced plans. Those terminations would affect the 800 remaining workers at the agency, after nearly 600 VOA contractors were dismissed by the Trump administration earlier this month. Employees have been advised by management to expect termination notices in the coming days. A senior VOA employee told POLITICO that based on his team's conversations with staff at the U.S. Agency for Global Media, VOA's parent company, the notices will likely affect all staff, effectively shutting down the international broadcasting network. Human resources at USAGM were told that RIF notices will likely go out as soon as Wednesday, according to another VOA employee. Thus far, USAGM has not responded to the unions demand to bargain RIFs, which two of the employees said would be a violation of its collective bargaining agreement. A representative for the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents VOA, declined to comment on the record. USAGM, the Department of Government Efficiency and the White House also did not respond to requests for comment. The expected move comes as VOA has largely remained dark since March 15, when President Donald Trump signed an executive order calling for VOA to be 'eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law,' along with several other agencies and offices. Trump has claimed that the network is 'anti-Trump' and referred to it as 'The Voice of Radical America.' Its employees say they have stood by their commitment to reporting nonpartisan news. Since then, a few dozen VOA staffers have returned to office, which staffers believe is an effort from USAGM senior adviser Kari Lake — a staunch Trump ally — to maintain statutory minimums. The most recent article leading VOA's website is from March 15. Earlier this month, Lake announced that VOA would receive content from One America News Network, a far-right, pro-Trump network that has propagated conspiracies around Covid-19 and the 2020 presidential election. VOA has taken the Trump administration to court in the months following the order, arguing that the agency's closure was unlawful under the First Amendment. But last week, a federal appeals court said it would not intervene in the administration's efforts to dismantle the network. The latest round of terminations could affect the ongoing litigation, but employees aren't optimistic. 'Even if somehow the organization can survive in some form, it would take years for our newsroom to overcome the trauma of being beaten up just for doing our job,' said VOA White House bureau chief Patsy Widakuswara, one of the plaintiffs in the case. 'I don't know how we can return to our mandate to report the facts without fear or favor.'
