During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in June, Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) asked Kari Lake about VOA's programming and its global reach to countries like Iran.
00:00We ask that members keep their questions to five minutes.
00:03I'm going to begin by working down the line.
00:05I'll start by recognizing the Chairman Emeritus, Representative McCall.
00:10Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
00:10Ms. Lake, thanks for being here.
00:13Today, I want to thank you for visiting with me in my office to talk about these challenges that you've outlined.
00:20I think the Chairman has outlined them quite well.
00:24I want to commend you for reforming USAGM.
00:28I think every new administration has a right and responsibility to do so.
00:33Your testimony has highlighted systemic problems that must be addressed, more importantly, security lapses, misuse of visas, weak editorial oversight, and much more.
00:46I look forward to authorizing this agency with the Chairman and his authorization bill to correct these abuses.
00:56I remember President Reagan used Voice of America when I was entering college as a front-line voices against Soviet oppression.
01:08It was the Voice of America, not the Voice of Anti-America.
01:11Recently, I used the Voice of America, an open technology fund, to translate my report on the origins of COVID-19.
01:21We disseminated it through mainland China, broke through the firewall.
01:26It went viral, got the attention of the CCP foreign minister, who spoke out against me and the report.
01:33That's the kind of impact this agency needs to reach.
01:39With the events in Iran, we need America's voice in Iran right now.
01:45We need to ensure the Iranian people hear the truth, that we do not intend to harm them, but rather their oppressor in this theocratic regime of the Ayatollah.
01:55This week, General Vogel, the CENTCOM commander, said the Voice of America is a critical tool for American security.
02:09You've outlined why there are many insecurities.
02:14I hope we can go back to that core mission.
02:17My dad's war, combating the Nazis.
02:21My question is, Ms. Lake, how are you working to fix the Voice of America, so it is the Voice of America, and not anti-America, in Iran,
02:34and use the Open Technology Fund to achieve the mission, the core mission that Congress intended?
02:45Thank you for that question, and thank you for laying out when it was a better agency.
02:50You're right, Ronald Reagan used it, a great broadcaster, one of the great communicators, and he used it.
02:54But times have changed, and it's still doing 1990s-style television in a world where people are getting their information right here on their smartphones.
03:04It's in the back pocket.
03:05And so we need to update it and modernize it.
03:08But President Trump's executive order, dated March 14th, has called for this agency to be brought to its statutory minimum.
03:15And I'm glad that you mentioned Iran, because one of the languages that is required in the statute is Farsi, and we are still broadcasting in Farsi.
03:25And chairman, ranking member, rather, Meeks, said that we have not been and that we, in a panic, started to put news out in Farsi.
03:35That is actually not true.
03:37We were in the process of effectuating President Trump's executive order, and in the process of doing that, several malicious lawsuits were started up, and the judge froze us from being able to get news on.
03:50We literally were frozen in place because of all of these lawsuits.
03:53Once we were free to start putting news on, we immediately went to what the statutory minimum is, and one of the languages is Farsi going into Iran.
04:02And I'm very proud to say that when President Trump, when the bombings happened over the weekend on Saturday, and when President Trump started to speak, we had a crew in on Saturday delivering President Trump's message to the people of Iran in Farsi.
04:17It was translated, and it went out.
04:19Sometimes a lean and mean and a smaller staff makes it easier to get things done.
04:24And in one of the emails that I got from our Persian team, they actually said that.
04:29They were able to move quicker because it was smaller.
04:32The bloat had been diminished.
04:33And I'm really proud of the fact that we got that on.
04:35We're going to continue to operate at the statutory minimum.
04:39We are putting out content in Pashto, Dari, Mandarin, Farsi, and Spanish through Office of Cuba Broadcasting.
04:47I thank you for that response.
04:49I think it's very important right now that the Iranian people hear the American story and the American message.
04:56And I commend you for your efforts to reform.
04:59And I encourage you to get that message into Iran right now.
05:04Communication inside and out is so important for those people if they're going to rise up against this oppressive theocracy that we've endured since 1979.
