In a recent appearance on Newsmax, Kari Lake, who Trump tapped to lead Voice of America (VOA), announced the shocking waste she uncovered at the United States Agency for Global Media. During the short clip, she exposed how journalists deliberately defraud the American taxpayer out of millions of dollars, with a luxurious HD headquarters.
For context, the president penned an executive order titled ‘CONTINUING THE REDUCTION OF THE FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY,’ which slashed funding to VOA by placing all employees on executive leave and canceling dozens of contracts.
In any case, during her interview with Newsmax’s David Harris Jr., which was posted on April 2, 2025, Kari Lake slammed the wasteful agency. She said, “Before the last administration, right before this election, they rented a 15-year lease. They got a 15-year lease on a swanky building, a swanky brand-new building, and it was going to cost the American taxpayer a quarter of a billion dollars when they already had a building.”
Then Lake explained how she ended this graft. She added, “We canceled the lease on that, saving the taxpayer a fortune. We canceled the lease on a bunch of contracts, including the AP and Reuters and the, you know, French press. Why are we? Why are we having the French press, and why are we having the AP?”
Concluding her remarks, she confidently said that the media should be self-sufficient. Lake said, “Tell us what the news is. If you’re a news outlet, you should be going out there producing your own news, not just ripping and reading from the AP and Reuters.”
Kari Lake has addressed this controversy before, such as when she issued a video explaining the situation to the public. As we reported, she said, “Hi, America; I’m here in Washington, DC, as a senior advisor for the US Agency for Global Media. I’m working on behalf of you, and President Trump and his administration, and I have been on the job for a couple of weeks now, and I’m horrified by some of the things I’m learning about this agency.”
Watch the clip here:
"*" indicates required fields
Building on that point. She said, “I’m sitting on the 13th floor of a shiny, brand-new skyscraper office building that is costing you, the taxpayer, a fortune. The Biden administration, folks who were running this agency before, right before they left office, signed a brand new lease for this building, a 15-year lease that’s going to cost the taxpayer nearly a quarter of a billion dollars.”
Continuing to explain the flagrant overspending, Lake added, “And I can tell you that this building is a colossal waste of money. Take a look at what’s in this building. Fancy conference rooms with wall-to-wall windows. There are 26 conference rooms, at least. That’s what I’ve counted in this building: there are four bridges to nowhere, massive waterfalls, Italian marble finishes everywhere, leather furnishings, all of this being paid for by the American taxpayer.”
Wrapping up her earlier statement, Kari Lake promised to continue fighting waste. She concluded, “I want you to know I’m hard at work here in Washington, DC. I’m working to make sure that we are not being bilked out of our hard-earned dollars, and we’re going to make sure we’re doing everything we can to cancel, save money, downsize, and make sure there’s no misuse of your dollars.”
Featured image from embedded video