After losing the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election to Democrat Katie Hobbs and the 2024 senatorial election against Democrat Ruben Gallego, former TV journalist Kari Lake was named Senior Advisor for U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) by President Donald Trump.
[USAGM is an independent federal agency that oversees public service media networks including Voice of America (VOA), which by law is supposed to provide unbiased news and have editorial independence from the government.]
On Friday, Lake followed Trump’s orders to cut “waste” at the agency by imposing widespread layoffs at Voice of America, which Lake has described as “rotten to the core,” for what she says is “politically biased and anti-American” reporting.
Note: Lake, who said that VOA will be run by a staff of 250 (compared to its former 1400), has suggested replacing Voice of America with free content created by the far-right pro-Trump channel One America News.
Trump Admin Senior Advisor @KariLake announces mass terminations at US Agency for Global Media
“USAGM now operates near the statutory minimum; lean and focused. This is a clear example of responsible government—cutting waste, restoring accountability, and delivering on the… pic.twitter.com/MpO2YOcIOF
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) June 20, 2025
Last week after the mass firings at VOA, CNN reported that “as the Israel-Iran conflict escalated, dozens of VOA staffers who had previously worked on Farsi-language programming were brought back to revive some US efforts to beam programming into Iran.”
This week, after President Trump ordered strikes by U.S. military on multiple Iranian nuclear facilities, Lake suggested that Trump should receive “a few” Nobel Peace Prizes.
With an image of the prestigious medal, she wrote: “There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be a few of these sitting on President Trump’s Desk. God Bless The Peace President, @realDonaldTrump!”
There’s no reason why there shouldn’t be a few of these sitting on President Trump’s Desk.
God Bless The Peace President, @realDonaldTrump! pic.twitter.com/wQmCnyHG2U— Kari Lake (@KariLake) June 23, 2025
Lake isn’t alone among MAGA adherents in her belief that Trump should be a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize, even if she is among the few who believe Trump should be the recipient of multiple Peace Prizes. Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) recently also pushed the idea of a Nobel for Trump on the MAGA-friendly Fox News platform.
President Trump deserves to win the Nobel Peace Prize for the historic deals he’s made across the Middle East and world. pic.twitter.com/nF4o0rrDkY
— Senator Katie Boyd Britt (@SenKatieBritt) June 24, 2025
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who remains skeptical about Iran becoming a more docile force in the region, also said recently that “if we can get Iran to change their behavior, then President Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize on steroids.”
Trump, who has fashioned himself a “peace president” with promises to end wars like the escalating conflict between Russia and Ukraine, complained publicly last week that he would never receive a Nobel.
“I should have gotten it four or five times [but] they won’t give me a Nobel Peace Prize because they only give it to liberals,” Trump said.
Only four U.S. presidents (three of who were Democrats) have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize: Theodore Roosevelt (in 1906 for his role in ending the Russo-Japanese War), Woodrow Wilson (in 1920 for his work in establishing the League of Nations and helping end World War I), Jimmy Carter (in 2002 for “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”), and Barack Obama in 2019, “for his promotion of nuclear nonproliferation and his support of multilateral diplomacy and a new climate in international politics.”