Trump Is Going To War With VOA. It's A Bigger Deal Than You Think.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Bulwark Takes – "Trump Is Going To War With VOA. It's A Bigger Deal Than You Think."

Release Date: March 27, 2025

In this gripping episode of Bulwark Takes, host Jim Swift engages in a profound discussion with Stephen Herman, the national correspondent at Voice of America (VOA) and author of Behind the White House Curtain. The conversation delves into the escalating conflict between former President Donald Trump and VOA, exploring the broader implications for American journalism and international broadcasting.

Introduction to Guests and Background

Jim Swift opens the episode by introducing Stephen Herman, highlighting his extensive career with VOA spanning nearly two decades, including his tenure as White House Bureau Chief during Trump's first term. Swift emphasizes Herman's firsthand experiences with significant historical events, from the Fukushima nuclear incident in Japan to pivotal moments in Washington D.C. This background sets the stage for a comprehensive exploration of the current challenges facing VOA.

Jim Swift [00:00]: "Stephen, thanks for joining us."

Stephen Herman [00:42]: "It's my pleasure to be here."

The Current Crisis at VOA

The core of the discussion centers on the precarious situation at VOA, exacerbated by administrative actions under the Trump administration aiming to phase out the agency. Herman outlines the dire circumstances, noting that approximately 1,350 staff members are on indefinite leave with pay since mid-March, with around 550 contractors facing imminent termination. This wave of layoffs not only threatens livelihoods but also endangers international correspondents who could face persecution upon returning to their home countries.

Stephen Herman [02:09]: "There's about 1,350 staff at the Voice of America. We've all since mid March been placed on indefinite leave with pay... it's extremely concerning for a number of those colleagues who are on J1 visas and half a dozen or so face returning to countries where they would almost certainly be prosecuted and possibly put in prison."

Historical Significance of VOA

Swift and Herman reflect on the rich history of VOA, underscoring its role during World War II and the Cold War as a beacon of truthful journalism. They reference the strategic use of VOA broadcasts to counteract propaganda from nations like the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, emphasizing the organization's mission to provide unfiltered news and build trust internationally.

Jim Swift [04:46]: "Hitler apparently called VOA the zinzin addi liars."

Herman expounds on the diversity within VOA, highlighting over 50 language services and the organization's adaptability in utilizing various platforms—ranging from television and radio to modern applications like Facebook and WhatsApp—to reach different audiences worldwide.

Stephen Herman [05:29]: "I would walk into the building, the Cohen Federal Building... it was like the United Nations of broadcasting."

Impact of Administrative Actions

The conversation shifts to the strategic repercussions of the Trump administration's attempts to dismantle VOA. Herman discusses ongoing lawsuits aimed at restoring VOA's operations, noting some positive developments, such as the partial reinstatement of Radio Freet Europe (RFERL) broadcasts to Cuba. Despite these efforts, the suspension of VOA broadcasts since mid-March creates a significant information vacuum, ripe for infiltration by state-controlled media from Moscow and Beijing.

Stephen Herman [06:55]: "The temporary funding should be restored... broadcasting to Cuba in Spanish have resumed, at least for now."

Swift emphasizes the unprecedented nature of Trump's foreign policy moves, contrasting them with the sustained, mission-driven approach of previous administrations. He expresses concern over the broader implications of targeting neutral, government-funded media, which traditionally serves as a firewall against foreign propaganda.

Jim Swift [08:58]: "The fact that the authorities in Moscow and the authorities in Beijing are cheering the destruction of Voice of America, I think demonstrates the effectiveness of it."

The Essential Role of VOA in Modern Times

Addressing questions about the relevance of VOA in the age of digital media, Herman clarifies that while traditional shortwave radio remains effective in certain regions, VOA's primary focus has shifted to television and digital platforms. He defends VOA's adaptability and underscores its crucial role in providing accurate and timely information in regions besieged by misinformation and authoritarian control.

Stephen Herman [10:20]: "We do not drop kinetic bombs. We drop truth bombs on countries... it saves lives, it can prevent strife by getting information into places accurately and quickly."

Herman also highlights VOA's targeted efforts in areas such as Tibet, Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh, and the Horn of Africa, where accurate information is vital for preventing chaos and supporting vulnerable populations.

Call to Action and Conclusion

In closing, Swift passionately urges listeners and Bulwark supporters to recognize the critical threat posed by the attack on VOA. He emphasizes the importance of defending neutral media and encourages proactive engagement with elected officials to safeguard this invaluable institution.

Jim Swift [16:20]: "I think you should be, too. And if you're the kind of person who's always talking to your elected officials, work that into the mix... it is telling to see what the reaction is of people who have not been historic allies, who are just over the moon at what's happening at the defenestration of VOA."

Herman concurs, reiterating the fundamental principle that VOA serves the American public by providing unbiased news, funded by taxpayer dollars, and insists that dismantling such institutions undermines the very fabric of democratic journalism.

Stephen Herman [14:09]: "VOA, it costs several hundred million dollars a year... it's meant to help."

The episode culminates with mutual expressions of support and a solemn acknowledgment of the ongoing battle to preserve VOAs integrity and operational capacity amidst political adversities.

Stephen Herman [17:27]: "Thank you, Jim. And go Reds."

Jim Swift [17:29]: "Go Reds."

Key Takeaways

• VOA's Critical Role: VOA has been a cornerstone of American international broadcasting, delivering truthful news to global audiences, especially in regions lacking reliable information sources.

• Current Threats: The Trump administration's actions to phase out VOA have placed thousands of employees on uncertain futures, with significant legal battles underway to preserve the agency's operations.

• Historical and Modern Relevance: While adapting to modern digital platforms, VOA remains essential in countering foreign propaganda and supporting democratic values worldwide.

• Call to Action: Supporters are encouraged to advocate for VOA's preservation by engaging with policymakers and recognizing the broader implications for global journalism and democracy.

This episode of Bulwark Takes serves as a poignant reminder of the essential role that neutral, government-funded media like VOA plays in maintaining global stability and promoting truth, urging listeners to stand in defense of such institutions against political assaults.

Transcript

[Jim Swift]

Hey, everyone. Jim Swift, senior editor here at the Bulwark at the Cincinnati Bureau, joined by a fellow Cincinnatian, a Cincinnati native, Stephen Herman, who is the national correspondent at Voice of America and author of behind the White House Curtain. He has it. I have the book. You should go buy it and read it. It's a wonderful book, I think. A whirlwind tour, not only of Stephen's multi decade career, where he has been all around the world with so many presidents, vice presidents, seen history, whether it was history in Japan, where he spent a lot of his career, Fukushima nuclear incident and the Trump first term where I kind of got introduced to him when I lived in Washington. So, Stephen, thanks for joining us.

[Stephen Herman]

It's my pleasure to be here.

[Jim Swift]

So voa, which is your longtime employer and your profile picture has you at the command center of the Bethany Relay Station, which is here in Cincinnati. I took one of my daughters there to go take this. Thankfully, it's a private museum, so there's no worries right now with all of the government issues with DOGE and funding cuts and everything. But you've been with VOA for how long exactly?

[Stephen Herman]

Well, I've been on staff nearly 20 years and I was a contract reporter for a number of years before that when I was living in Tokyo.

[Jim Swift]

You were also there during the handover to Hong Kong. I mean, you experienced a lot of history, the subway bombing in Japan. And then you kind of came into voa, back to Washington where you were the White House Bureau chief during Trump 1. And it was pretty tumultuous, sort of a precursor of what we're seeing right now. Like almost every single agency out there, there's, there's so much for people to focus on. But I want to spend some time kind of focusing on VOA and its importance. VOA is kind of its future is up in the air right now with DOGE and its parent basically phasing out voa. There are two lawsuits that I'm aware of and there's a temporary stay with Radio Free Europe. Things are kind of up in the air right now. What, what are your, what are your colleagues doing?

[Stephen Herman]

It's a situation that's quite perilous. There's about 1,350 staff at the Voice of America. We've all since mid March been placed on indefinite leave with pay, although about 550 of those are contractors and have been told that their contracts will be terminated at the end of the month. So they'll lose their jobs, lose their salaries, lose their health insurance. And it's extremely concerning for a number of those colleagues who are on J1 visas and half a dozen or so face returning to countries where they would almost certainly be prosecuted and possibly put in prison. So we're very, very concerned about them and hoping to sort of stop that action from taking place. I can tell you that hundreds of my colleagues are keeping very busy in communication with each other. We have all sorts of different groups on, on diff, on apps to communicate and, and forming, commit committees for publicity, for trying to save our archives. And I, I spend half of my day now in Signal, although I haven't been in on any of, you know, the high level national security meetings yet. On Signal.

[Jim Swift]

Yeah, I was up at the relay station, just kind of taking in all of the history there. Just the voice of America being silenced is not a reality that I ever would have expected. I don't think any of us would have ever expected. And I was taken by. And I see the lovely. Is that a Crosley radio behind you, I hope?

[Stephen Herman]

Yes, it is. Right.

[Jim Swift]

But as I was touring this museum, you know, you would see little radios that people had in the Soviet Union that the people in their town would mess with, so the, the one that they bought from the Soviets could pick up voa. It would be easy to just modify this radio. Definitely. Very serious crime and illegal. And across from that, there's a little thing about World War II, which VOA has a lot of history in from the War Information Department and you know, giving the world true unfiltered news. Right. And that was, that was the grand PR thing was like, well, if we're going to tell it to them straight and give them news good or bad, that's trust building, which was novel at the time. Yes. And. And Hitler apparently called VOA the zinzin addi liars.

[Stephen Herman]

Yeah.

[Jim Swift]

And they have so many. And the important part is reaching people in their language, meeting people where they are. And you're Talking about these J1 folks, it would be like. And having these folks have to go back to those hostile regimes. There were German speakers, people. I mean, Cincinnati has a big German history, but if someone was here on the equivalent of a J1 visa working for VOA during World War II and Roosevelt or, you know, decided to do that, they'd be going back to Germany. I mean, this is really what that. I mean, not to be too hyperbolic, we're talking about people, thousands of people from many different. I would say, probably. Would you say it's fair to say that there are at least 5050 plus countries represented in terms of national origin by VOA employees.

[Stephen Herman]

I mean, it's more than that because we have. With English and learning English, 50, just about 50 language is at the Voice of America. I would walk into the building, the Cohen Federal Building, right near Capitol Hill, and it was like the United nations of broadcasting. It's just one of the most amazing places I've ever worked because of the diversity that existed there and everyone's commitment to the mission.

[Jim Swift]

And there are also people abroad. I mean, there are people who come here from foreign countries on these visas to help VOA in its mission, whose not only livelihoods but lives are really potentially at stake if they have to go back to this, to a hostile regime, unless they can find a country that will take them in the interim. But there are also American citizens who work for Voice of America, who have moved halfway across the world to far from places like you have over your career before you were based here in Washington. Those folks, you know, they're going to have to just move back. I mean, they're going to be. If Trump gets his way and, you know, if they're contractors and they're terminated. There is a question about the firewall. I mean, these. This is an agency that was created by the US Congress. They're supposed to be a firewall that prohibits such interference. And that is what is playing out in the courts right now. Do you know of any other court cases coming, or are we going to have to wait for more actions to have kind of standing, do you think?

[Stephen Herman]

Well, there's a number of different cases that are going on right now, and we have some very initial encouraging signs with the RFERL case, which is in Washington, where there are a couple of VOA cases, one in Washington, one in New York with rferl. A judge said that, you know, they, the temporary funding should be restored. And there's some positive developments with basically the parent agency USAGM backing off a bit and at least allowing RFERL to continue for a period of time. Radio Mark D, which is under the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, which is under usagm, is back on the air, at least partially after there was a lot of publicity, you know, with headlines like Trump did what the Castros never could do. So those broadcasts to Cuba in Spanish have resumed, at least for now. And we want the same thing to happen for the Voice of America. You know, we've been off the air essentially since mid March, and it's a disaster because people are in the habit of watching a program at a certain time. Or listening to a stream or tuning in on, on the radio. And we've been gone now, and that void is going to be filled by the voices from Moscow and the voices from Beijing. The, the Chinese especially are spending a tremendous amount of power on a tremendous amount of money, I should say, which converts the soft power on, on international broadcasting. And the fact that the authorities in Moscow and the authorities in Beijing are cheering the destruction of Voice of America, I think demonstrates the effectiveness of it.

[Jim Swift]

Yeah. And when I heard that, it kind of, it tells you all you need to know. And Trump's foreign policy is pretty unprecedented. And while he has had, you know, kind of a more hawkish view of Cuba than his predecessor, Barack Obama, I mean, that's not really, in my view that how VOA should be viewed as a tool. Right. Like, it isn't something that you're doing to pick on certain countries. The truth should be the truth, and we are a trusted place and VOA for decades has been able to report that. So, yes, the Trump presidency's foreign policies are definitely decidedly different than that of Obama and Biden's. But, you know, you could just let that infrastructure go on and hum and do its job and not, you know, ramp it up. I remember from the Nick Clooney narrated little welcome video at the museum, they were talking about what the shortwave situation was in the early days of World War II. Germany had a ton of it, Japan had a ton of it, and we had practically none of it. And we ramped it up. And then now we're just kind of unilaterally disarming. I mean, I know a lot of it was changing. I mean, we are very first world here. We're used to tweets and Mastodon and all these social media networks, and not as many people listen to over the air radio as you would in, you know, a third world country, or actually.

[Stephen Herman]

Very little of, of what VOA does these days has been shortwave radio. It's still there and it's effective for getting into places like North Korea and very remote parts of the world. Most of what VOA has been doing for many years is on television. And also depending on the country and the language, our programming will be distributed, whether it's the TV news shows or radio or entertainment on, on apps. So if Facebook's big in a particular country, then that language service will be on Facebook. If, you know, it's WhatsApp, then then they'll be on, on that particular app. So it, we're, we're very flexible sometimes we're not at the leading edge of technology as quickly as, as I would like to be because, you know, we are working within a, a federal bureaucracy. But in this particular case, you know, our destruction is coming at the hands of the federal bureaucracy. And I understand, and this has happened in previous administrations where they get frustrated with voa. They wish it would sort of toe the line of their particular foreign policy or, you know, domestic policy objectives. But we are mandated by law. We have a charter that says we shall present a very balanced view of American thought and institution. And so that means, you know, we do report, if the President does something significant, we report that. But we're going to balance it by digging into it, as any major journalistic organization would do. That's, that's, that wants to be balanced. And if there are our opposition members of Congress on Capitol Hill that have a say about this new government policy, we're going to interview them. We'll talk to people at think tanks, at NGOs. We may interview people. If it's something of foreign policy, we may interview some leaders or people on the street in, in that particular country. That's going to be effective. So it's, it's, you know, as, as you well know, it's not a propaganda vehicle. And, and by demonstrating fair and balanced journalism, we're representing what the American media is all about in the First Amendment as well.

[Jim Swift]

Unfortunately, I don't think Trump is going to backtrack like when he went after NATO in his first term. You know, he, his, his, his defenders would couch this by saying they're just trying to get Europe to do more. Right? Like they just want Europe to increase their DoD budgets. But really the underlying reality, the truth of it is Trump was very hostile towards NATO. And I think, in my view, we're seeing what play out now unvarnished in the second term, not burdened by having to run for election again, is a preview of what you saw and what you witnessed and a lot of what you wrote about in your book, which, again, everyone should go out and buy. I enjoyed it very much. I just finished it last night before we chatted. But we're seeing now, I mean, it's just a hostility towards Voice of America, which, during the first Trump term, you were banned from Mike Pence's plane temporarily. You've been the subject of Elon Musk's kind of personal puppet mastering at Twitter. You had a colleague who was pushed out at the White House by government folks. And for me, just something smells there. It doesn't. It doesn't add up. But it's nice to see that Europe is knowing now that VOA is under attack by our own administration. You've seen some reporting that with Radio Free Europe, countries are thinking about trying to make sure if the worst happens, things continue. And while that's heartening, it doesn't need to happen. I think that's why it's so frustrating.

[Stephen Herman]

Well, one thing is that this is US Government funded and we don't target Americans. But the American people are stakeholders in this. American tax dollars are paying for it. And voa, it costs several hundred million dollars a year. But when you divide that up between four dozen languages or so, it's not a lot of money for each service. Plus the infrastructure to do television and.

[Jim Swift]

Radio, it's an immensely cheap investment.

[Stephen Herman]

Well, it's less than the cost of two fighter jets is the way that I look at it. And we do not drop kinetic bombs. We drop truth bombs on countries. And it's meant to help. And we know that what we do with the Voice of America, it saves lives, it can prevent strife by getting information into places accurately and quickly. Because, as you know, when there's a vacuum of information, whether it's a natural disaster, a civil conflict or an an epidemic, there can be fear and panic and leading to all sorts of terrible things. And you mentioned about Hitler and the Cincinnati liars. German was our first language, Japanese the second. We do not broadcast anymore in German and Japanese. Our language mix depends on the geopolitical situation of the world. And so the places that are least apt to to be able to inform themselves because they're under an autocratic regime or they just don't have the type of media infrastructure to. To do what we do. Those are the places we're serving, like broadcasting to the Tibetans in Tibet and the Tibetan diaspora into Burma. We have special programs for the Rohingya in the refugee camps in Bangladesh. Horn of Africa is a big target for us, as well as into into the region such as Sudan and other places where, you know, there's a lot of really bad things happening.

[Jim Swift]

I think that really lays out the importance of VOA and why you guys, as bulwark folks who are watching this need to make sure that among the many things that you're frustrated and angry about, I'm very angry about the attack on Voice of America. I think you should be, too. And if you're the kind of person who's always talking to your elected officials, work that into the mix, because there's so much right now, everything is under attack. And, you know, I'm like, who would have thought that Canadian Bacon kind of was a satirical movie that turns out now that it might be a prophetic thing. And maybe they can turn the CN Tower into Radio Free Canada. Because at some point in this slow burning constitutional crisis we have here attacking neutral media that has done so much good, not only for us as a country, as sort of a flag bearer of truth, it is telling to see what the reaction is of people who have not been historic allies, who are just over the moon at what's happening at the defenestration of voa. And it's very sad. Stephen, thank you for joining us.

[Stephen Herman]

Thank you, Jim. And go Reds.

[Jim Swift]

Go Reds.