By Brian McDonald, Twitter, 3/17/25

Trump’s decision to dismantle Voice of America and RFERL isn’t some grand Kremlin conspiracy—it’s basic housecleaning. These outlets were supposed to serve U.S. foreign policy interests, but instead, they became ideological echo chambers that alienated their target audiences and undermined Washington’s own strategic objectives..

Look at the website of their parent body, the
@USAGMgov
, and it says that these outlet’s activities must “be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States.” But they have not been for some time now.

Once upon a time, American-funded media broadcast messages of freedom, prosperity, and shared values, convincing millions behind the Iron Curtain that the West offered a better future.That was the point—soft power at its most effective. But fast-forward to today, and what do we see?

Instead of fostering goodwill or even basic engagement, these media turned into hyper-woke culture war machines, promoting “decolonization” narratives, gender ideology, and separatist movements that have zero appeal to ordinary Russians. Instead of making a case for the West, they told Russians that their culture was inherently oppressive, that their literary greats were villains, and that their national identity needed to be dismantled.

Rather than persuading Russians that better ties with America were possible, they actively pushed Moscow and Beijing closer together. Imagine the absurdity: U.S. foreign policy has been trying to negotiate with Russia, while its own government-funded broadcasters is telling Russians that their entire history was toxic and needs to be erased. You don’t need to be a foreign policy genius to see how self-defeating that is.

Worse still, these outlets didn’t just lose the plot—they went rogue. They gave platforms to outright separatists and extremists, advocated for the breakup of Russia, and churned out narratives that had nothing to do with America’s interests and everything to do with the obsessions of an unaccountable media class.

A U.S. propaganda machine that once helped win the Cold War ended up hijacked by activists who were more interested in lecturing Russians about transgender rights than in actually advancing U.S. diplomacy.

So why were these outlets axed? Simple. They had completely abandoned their mission. The U.S. government doesn’t need to pay for expensive media networks that do nothing but inflame tensions, sabotage diplomatic efforts, and alienate the very people they were meant to reach.

Trump’s move isn’t a “gift to Putin”—it’s a much-needed correction. I If America wants to regain influence, it needs to stop funding ideological vanity projects that serve no purpose other than making their own staff feel morally superior.