During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in June, Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) asked Kari Lake about VOA's programming and the reach it has to other countries.
00:05Based on the previous conversation on the security clearances, I want to go to Iran, back to Iran.
00:12In June of this year, you restarted broadcasts to Iran after Israel attacked them.
00:20In the meantime, Musk has said that the beams are on with Starlink into Iran.
00:27Industry estimates that there are 20,000 terminals, and you have to have a terminal yet.
00:31They're still testing cell phones operating in Iran through the black market channels.
00:37So I want to compare the two.
00:39Approximately how many Iranians currently watch the VOA Persian service?
00:46Probably not that many, to be honest.
00:48The ratings aren't particularly good, and I don't know if you've ever had a chance to sit down and watch VOA programming.
00:53It's painful to watch.
00:55Yeah, the RFE and RL have claimed that they reach millions of Iranians.
01:01So, obviously, given your response, how are we going to support broadcast into Iran, then, is the bottom line.
01:18I'll jump over some of this because I think it's not going to be answerable.
01:24What format do you see going into the most constrained countries?
01:30How are we going to do that? Because technology is changing fast.
01:33Absolutely.
01:34So, you know, we can call it radio free whatever.
01:38But how do you plan to get pro-American, the American story, into the most denied countries?
01:45And we'll start with Iran.
01:47You know, I think Starlink is a great option.
01:49And a lot of people have mentioned OTF, and that's the way to go.
01:53But to be honest, they're behind the times.
01:56You know, they're looking at VPNs.
01:58And when a dictator turns off the Internet, good luck.
02:03I mean, you've got to have a way to get information in.
02:06I think that Starlink is a great option.
02:08I would like to see Starlink moving a little bit faster into Iran so we can get the word out.
02:13We have an opportunity right now to let the people of Iran know that we don't have a problem with the people of Iran.
02:17They're incredible people.
02:18They have been mistreated for many decades.
02:21And we want to make sure that they know that America is a friend.
02:25Yeah, and I think the high-tech, you need to be examining how you're going to get around the government.
02:31That's right.
02:32How are you going to actually get the beam into the country, into the denied countries?
02:37I will say, though, with our programming that we put out on Saturday, I think it was the most watched we've ever put into Farsi.
02:43And it was through modes of people were actually seeing it, and they were watching.
02:51So they're very in tune to what's happening in America right now.
02:54They are, but the government will then respond and cut it off if possible.
02:58That's right.
02:59So you've got to stay one step ahead of them.
03:01This is the age-old, how do you stay ahead of the enemy, the adversary.
03:06So what obstacles do you see in today's climate in getting into the big four?
03:12Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
03:14What obstacles do you see and how do you plan to overcome them with this new organization that you are going to be developing?
03:21Well, we would like to continue to put information that is accurate to the folks in those.
03:28And as I mentioned, we're reaching four languages, actually Pashto, Dari, Mandarin, Farsi, and in Cuba as well.
03:34And it's difficult.
03:35You know, we're still using radio and Radio Marti in South Florida.
03:40Sure.
03:41That seems to be working, but we're not reaching that many people with this.
03:44And I think we have to examine if it's worth the money that's going into this to be not reaching that many people.
03:51There's other ways to reach people than, like I said, 1990s-style television.
03:56And I think that's, you can look at Twitter, you can look at social media.
04:00I mean, do you think for one minute that, you know, some of the Democrats have said, oh, China's rushing in and they're filling the vacuum.
04:07They're not doing 1990s television.
04:09They're laughing.
04:10As a matter of fact, they're not only laughing at what we were doing, they were controlling what we were doing by having more of a say of what our content was than we did.
04:18They're seeding narratives on TikTok, on Twitter.
04:23If we really want to be effective in changing the narrative, it's narrative seeding on social media.
04:28It's not 1990s-style TV with a bloated staff of many people who actually hate America.
04:35That's exactly right.
04:36And my whole point in this questioning is you're going to have to move fast to stay ahead of the technology.
04:42Right.
04:43It is changing fast, and I just recommend you do a scrub on how you're going to stay ahead of it because we've got to get American information into these countries.
04:55It is a great help.
04:56It helped under the Soviet Union and denied countries.
05:00We've got to do that.
05:01My time has expired.
05:02Thank you very much for your answers.
05:05The gentleman from Arizona, Mr. Stanton.
05:07Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
05:08Ms. Lake, your actions as senior advisor are eroding American soft power around the globe.
