PULSE POINTS:
❓What Happened: Despite claims from left-wing media, Kari Lake is not backing down from efforts to gut the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) and return it to its core legal functions.
👥 Who’s Involved: Kari Lake (Senior Advisor at USAGM), Trump administration, employment unions (AFSCME & AFGE), Obama/Biden-appointed judges, and Radio Free Europe/Liberty.
💬 Key Quote: “She’s more dangerous in this role,” said a source close to USAGM operations, highlighting Lake’s effectiveness as a senior advisor despite establishment efforts to block her formal directorship.
📉 Fallout: Up to 1,300 of USAGM’s 3,500 employees are already on leave, and sources say hundreds more are about to be terminated in the coming weeks. A federal grant to Radio Free Europe/Liberty was briefly reinstated only to prevent activist judges from freezing Lake’s plans.
⚠️ Significance: The move is a major front in the Trump administration’s government efficiency push, targeting taxpayer-funded foreign media and deep-state bureaucracies long shielded by union power and judicial interference.
IN FULL:
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Kari Lake, the senior advisor for the Trump administration’s U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), is not “backtracking” from plans to reduce the agency to its core statutory functions, sources have told The National Pulse.
The news comes despite left-wing media claims that Lake has conceded a legal fight regarding the termination of a federal grant to Radio Free Europe/Liberty – one of USAGM’s flagship foreign interference media outlets.
In fact, sources with knowledge of the position of the employment unions – the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the American Federation of Government Employees (both affiliated with the far-left AFL-CIO) – have indicated that Lake is still preparing hundreds of terminations beginning in the next few weeks.
In accordance with employment law, the unions must be notified in advance of any major layoffs, a step that Lake is believed to have taken this week.
“She is unfazed and far more dangerous in this role,” said one, referring to the establishment’s insistence on keeping her out as director of USAGM, per President Trump’s request, and having her serve as a “senior advisor” to the organization instead.
USAGM has around 3,500 employees, with as many as 1,300 having already been placed on leave.
The National Pulse understands that the withdrawal of the grant termination this week was, in effect, to stop left-wing judges from keeping the matter out of Lake and Trump’s hands via temporary restraining orders. Several Obama—and Biden-era judges, including Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) orders, have used these orders to stymie Trump’s efficiency exercises.