Hundreds of Federal Workers at Voice of America Receive Layoff Notices

The Trump administration sent layoff notices on Friday to more than 600 employees at Voice of America, a federally funded news organization that provides independent reporting to countries with limited press freedom.

The layoffs, known as reductions in force, will shrink the staff count at the news organization to less than 200, around one-seventh of its head count at the beginning of 2025. They put Voice of America journalists and support staff on paid leave until they are let go on Sept. 1.

The termination notices are the latest round of the Trump administration’s attack on federally funded news networks, including Voice of America.

In March, President Trump accused the news group of spreading “anti-American” and partisan “propaganda,” calling it “the voice of radical America.” He then signed an executive order that effectively called for dismantling of the news agency and put nearly all Voice of America reporters on paid leave, ceasing its news operations for the first time since its founding in 1942.

Kari Lake, a fierce Trump ally and a senior adviser at the news organization’s oversight agency, U.S. Agency for Global Media, notified Congress earlier this month that it intended to eliminate most positions at Voice of America. Her letter identified fewer than 20 employees who must remain at the media organization, according to laws passed by Congress to establish and fund it. Friday’s termination notices leave around 200 employees, following the firing of hundreds of contractors last month.

Last week, the Trump administration asked some staff from the Persian-language service to come back to work, after hostilities between Israel and Iran intensified. But at least two Voice of America journalists who had been recalled received layoff notices on Friday.

Ms. Lake’s decision “spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds U.S. ideals of democracy and freedom around the world,” Patsy Widakuswara, a former Voice of America White House bureau chief who also received a layoff notice on Friday, said in a statement. She is leading a lawsuit against Ms. Lake and the U.S. Agency for Global Media.

She encouraged Congress to intervene and to signal support for Voice of America, which was founded to combat Nazi propaganda and reported in countries that suppress independent reporting and free speech.

“Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the global information space with anti-America propaganda,” Ms. Widakuswara said. “Do not cede this ground by silencing America’s voice.”

Ms. Lake, who is leading the effort to gut Voice of America, called the news group “a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy” and attributed her termination of 639 employees at her agency to her goal of eliminating “dysfunction, bias and waste.”

She added: “I’m proud to carry out President Trump’s executive order and deliver results that put America first.”

The termination notices on Friday arrived nearly two months after a district court judge ordered Ms. Lake to resume news operations so that Voice of America could “serve as a consistently reliable and authoritative source of news” across the globe.

Although the Trump administration did not appeal the judge’s order, it kept most of the news organization’s staff on paid leave.

Voice of America now provides news in only four languages and has radio broadcasts in only one country, Afghanistan, according to court filings. That is a significant reduction from February, when it had around 1,300 journalists who broadcast in 49 languages to an audience of over 360 million worldwide.