Trump's Trials - Judge rules Kari Lake unlawfully ran Voice of America, mass layoffs void

Episode Date: March 9, 2026

A federal judge has ruled that Kari Lake does not have legal standing to oversee the Voice of America and its parent agency, and nullified her actions, including mass layoffs.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.To manage podcast ad preferences, review the links below:See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. President Trump promised every single American that he would make America safe again. Every single day in the Oval Office, the president looks at us and says, why haven't we done more? This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. I'm Steve Inskey.

A federal judge has ruled that a Trump administration official illegally tried to dismantle the voice of America. That's the government-funded broadcaster that provides news to people living under repressive regimes. The judge ruled that Kerry Lake, a Republican politician, did not have authority to oversee the network and its federal parent agency. And the judges declared her actions void. NPR's David Fulkenflake was the first. First, to question Lake's legal authority to run VOA, and he's now with us. David, good morning. Good morning, Steve. What did Kerry Lake change or try to change at VOA? Well, let's start with what VOA is. Voice of America was started in World War II and has continued the decade since to provide sort of factual news, not propaganda, to countries that don't have a free press or don't have really a functioning free press.

Carrie Lake and President Trump have attacked it as basically being propaganda and hostile to President Trump itself. She sought to effectively dismantle it. So she laid off hundreds and hundreds of employees of Voice of America in a couple of its sister networks. She tried to cut off funding from other networks like Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty that are funded by the federal government to reach other foreign lands. She canceled a contract for new headquarters that her predecessor said would save tens of millions of dollars for the federal government. And she basically tried to cut these things down to the bone to essentially make it impossible for them to continue to function. Yeah, in some cases, programming was stopped or disrupted. So why did the judge nullify all of that?

Well, previously, there were these lawsuits challenging basically all of these things. And previously, the judge in this case is a senior U.S. District Court judge named Roycey Lamberth. He took issue with some of her decisions. Not only was she, you know, cutting back deeply, these things were effectively blocked from broadcasting at all. And he said, you know, that that wasn't legal. The appeals court took issue with some of what he did. But nonetheless, this time he sidestepped that question. He said, look, this isn't a question of whether the actions she took were legal.

It's a question saying she didn't have the authority to make those decisions. She was assigned in late February of last year to be a senior advisor to the agency by President Trump. But within days, she was designated as having basically all of the powers of the CEO, which is a position that's supposed to be nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. later in July she was made deputy CEO and a few weeks after that she announced that she was the acting CEO. Again in July she was delegated all the powers of the CEO. But I couldn't find that the White House had actually named her to that. I asked her about a dozen times and I asked the agency that she runs called the U.S. agency for global media over the Voice America and I asked the White House,

who named her? Did the president make this announcement? Is there any documentation, all of which has to exist just to become the acting CEO? I never found or was given any documentation for that. The judge ruled precisely this in neither case, neither as senior advisor or as acting CEO or whatever. Did she have the authority to take on those powers? He said she didn't seem to have the ability to be acting CEO either. So she's not an official.

She's like a rogue politician according to the judge. How is Lake responded, though? Well, she says she's going to appeal. She's called Lamberth an activist judge. She said to me she was acting legally, but again, there was none of this documentation for that. Is there any way to reverse all the layoffs and other cancellations? and changes? Well, if the judge's ruling stands, there's hope among voice of America journalists that they can do so, but it's hard to unwind changes or put the

toothpaste back in the tube, as one VOA official said on Twitter in recent hours. Many people have taken different jobs. Some of these networks have effectively been shut down. And, you know, if you cut off these relationships with these hundreds of millions listeners a week, it's hard to rebuild. And yet people are hoping to do just that. And Bureau of Media correspondent, David Fulkin Flick is still broadcasting. David, thanks so much. You bet. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages.

You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.