00:00Chair now recognizes Representative Barra. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to enter into the record a letter dated yesterday from the president of the News Guild, just asking this committee to take a look and make sure the funds that are supposed to be restored actually get restored to the guarantees.
00:20Thank you. Here's what bothers me about this. Reforms are fine and so forth, but I agree with my good friend from Texas, the Chairman Emeritus, Mr. McCall, about the importance of having tools like the Open Technology Fund that can translate, use the Internet, use Instagram, etc., to get out there and get our message to places like China, etc.
00:49I agree with Chairman Smith. I mean, we've got to speak to the Chinese people about what's happening to the Uyghur population. We've got to have those tools. So eliminating those tools wholesale make us weaker as a country. That is a problem.
01:04And in fact, our Secretary of State penned an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal back in 2018 talking about how important what Radio Free Asia does is in exposing China's campaign against its Muslim minorities, the Uyghurs.
01:17Mr. Chairman, I'd like to enter that op-ed into the record, if I might. So here's the challenge. The ranking member raised, I think, what is a very important issue.
01:28You know, we can debate, you know, whether this should, say, an independent agency come back into the State Department or not.
01:34But the wholesale way of dismantling this agency, I think the chairman asked a legitimate question, what was the strategy?
01:44What was, was there a methodical approach to looking at the agency? What was effective? What was not effective?
01:51What should we be doing? What should we not be doing?
01:53Ms. Slate, can you provide kind of that methodical approach in terms of how the administration, how you looked at, you know, what essentially is a dismantling of this agency?
02:06Yeah, we actually got to work after the 14th of March and we put people on administrative leave and assessed what the statutory minimum was.
02:14Can you provide us documentation of that so we can do our job as oversight?
02:17Yeah, I mean, in meetings and in discussions, we talked about what is the minutes of those meetings and, you know, the documentation.
02:25It would be emails and things of the such.
02:27That's all stuff that we can take a look at as a committee is we do oversight.
02:30Again, I'm not against modernizing the agency.
02:35I'm not against looking at things.
02:36The challenge Mr. Keating touched on, you know, we're in the middle of what is a war in the Middle East.
02:44Hopefully, the ceasefire holds. Hopefully, the Iranian people rise up and demand a better future.
02:50You know, I've reserved judgment on the president's actions.
02:53I do want the administration to come brief us on what they're thinking, how this is unfolding.
02:58But absolutely, right now, we need all of our tools to communicate to the Iranian people.
03:03We need to do that through the radio, through the Internet, through Instagram.
03:08I'm not a big TikTok fan. Yeah, I supported the TikTok fan.
03:12But if folks are getting information on TikTok, we've got to be using that as well.
03:16I am very concerned that the personnel have been laid off, that, you know, we're working with the shoestring staff.
03:22That is making us weaker and less effective at a moment of vulnerability for the Iranian regime,
03:27where this could be a time where the Iranian people choose to take a different path forward.
03:32What I would like to do and what I'd like a commitment to do, and I'd ask the chairman for this,
03:37is there was a time on this committee where we actually did do reforms.
03:41When I was a freshman member of Congress under Chairman Ed Royce, at that time, Ranking Member Elliot Engel,
03:49we actually did do a bipartisan reform bill that I believe passed this committee unanimously and moved forward.
03:57That's our job.
03:59Ms. Lake, you should be working with us.
04:01We should not be dismantling an agency that we've seen over history has been super effective,
04:07whether it was in World War II, combating the Nazis in the Cold War,
04:11going against the repressive Russian or Soviet Union and the Communist Party.
04:17What I think the administration's doing and how they've approached this is making us weaker.
04:21And it is not a systematic way of thinking about how you reform and modernize things.
04:27I'd love to see the records, the minutes, the emails, so we can actually do our job in oversight.
04:32And I'd love for you to work, and Mr. Chairman, for us to work together in a bipartisan way to say,
04:37okay, in the 21st century, we do need tools to combat the propaganda that our enemies are putting out there.
04:44We do need to hire the best folks.
04:47We do need to have all of that.
04:48Again, Ms. Lake, I'd love your commitment to work with this committee, work with Congress to enact those reforms
04:55and share the information and what you're thinking.
04:59Absolutely.
04:59It would be wonderful to work with you and to effectuate the President's executive order
05:03to reduce this agency down in size so that it's lean, mean, and effective.
05:08And I think it is effective.
05:09We were able to get information out and translated into Farsi as to what was happening.
05:15We were able to get President Trump's address translated live as it was happening.
05:19You don't need a massive staff.
05:22This is the only newsroom in the world that hasn't seen cutbacks because we don't need to have massive newsrooms.
05:3015,000 people.
05:32Right now what I worry about, though, is we've let go of all the staff, and it isn't happening, and it's only happening.
05:38We haven't let go of all the staff, actually.
05:40Gentleman's time has expired.
05:41By the way, can I just mention something?
05:44I want to show you the newsroom, one of the newsrooms over at VOA.
05:47I don't know if you can see this.
05:49Empty.
05:50It's kind of a where's Waldo.
05:51Can you spot the one person in there?
05:54Not from here.
05:55One person in the newsroom.
05:56And I know you're probably saying, yeah, thanks a lot, Carrie.
05:59No, this was actually back during the Biden administration.
06:01I didn't hear any complaints coming from anybody when nobody was showing up for work at VOA.
06:07When one person was showing up in the middle of the week, one person showed up.
06:12And nobody on this committee, nobody in, no Democrat said, why is there only one person in that newsroom?
06:19We need to get more people in the newsroom to get the story out.
06:22Nobody was showing up for work.
06:23And now that we are actually right-sizing an agency that has been bloated out of control and has never been right-sized, even though newsrooms all across this country.
06:32Mr. Chairman.
06:33Now I'm going to recognize myself for five minutes of questioning.
06:36Oh, Mr. Chairman, you may have consent just for clarification.
06:39Was that in the middle of COVID, by the way?
06:41This was last November.
06:44So I think COVID was over.
06:45Good question.
06:46But the elections were, maybe had something to do with the elections.
06:49Well, I think you'd want to be in there if there was an election.
06:51This is the middle of the week in November.
06:55I've been in newsrooms.
06:56These are actually really full during an election.
06:58But I know this newsroom was ready to attack President Trump.
07:03They were doing ads for Joe Biden.
07:05They were literally running Joe Biden ads.
07:08Mr. Chairman, whose time is this?
07:09And attacking President Trump.
07:11Whose time is this?
07:12Well, Mr. Keating just wanted a moment to ask a question.
07:14So I think she's responding to that.
07:16I think it's cutting into your time, Mr. Chairman.
07:18You're welcome for giving more time to your side.
