MAGA loyalist Kari Lake, the acting head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, has announced that it will be shutting down a government-funded radio station for what it claims is the undermining of Donald Trump’s foreign policies.
Lake, an election denier and failed political candidate, notified Congress that the agency will pull funding for the Hungarian service of Radio Free Europe, which has reported critically on the country’s leader and top Trump ally, Viktor Orbán.
In a letter to Florida GOP Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, Lake said the decision to withdraw funding was made because the station’s “programming has undermined President Trump’s foreign policy by opposing the duly elected prime minister Viktor Orbán.”
The decision came just two days before Orbán, a far-right, anti-immigration leader, is scheduled to visit Trump at the White House on Friday for talks about Russia’s war in Ukraine and potential exemptions from sanctions against Moscow’s two largest oil companies.
The letter does not provide any examples of how the station allegedly undermined Trump’s foreign policy, beyond stating that Hungary is a “strong U.S. ally” and a member of the NATO alliance.
Lake, 56, who is trying to dismantle Voice of America—the government-funded broadcaster that was founded to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II—also confirmed that she is pulling funding from Radio Free Europe for criticizing Orbán’s leadership during an appearance on Newsmax on Thursday night.
“The American taxpayer is footing the bill for millions of dollars to do radio that’s meant to not just disparage the Hungarian people and what’s happening in Hungary, the very nationalist movement there, but it’s really meant to destabilize that country,” Lake said.
“American taxpayer dollars should not go toward a globalist radio program in an ally country. It’s a NATO ally, and the globalists hate Viktor Orbán, and I think the American people shouldn’t be footing the bill for globalist EU radio programming meant to tear down one of our NATO allies.”
MSNBC opinion writer Ja’han Jones said Lake’s move was “effectively a gift to Hungary’s illiberal, Trump-loving prime minister” ahead of Orbán’s White House visit.
“While Lake’s letter claims the termination of the Hungarian platform is necessary to avoid meddling with a NATO ally—and claims similar cuts will be made in other NATO-allied countries—this seems more like an obvious present for the president’s autocratic buddy in Orbán, a man whose dictatorial power and influence Trump has fawned over,” Jones wrote.
Trump and Orbán have been strong allies for years, with the Hungarian leader becoming the first EU leader to endorse Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
The Daily Beast has contacted the U.S. Agency for Global Media for comment.
