she was head of voa under the trump administration. amanda bennett is a big deal. two-time pulitzer prize-winning journalist. she was also an editor at thor ghosni -- oregonian in portland. this is who has been running the voice of america for the past two years. but as of this week, she is gone. she resigned suddenly along with her deputy and without much of an explanation at the beginning of this week. if that wasn't interesting enough, within 48 hours, all the network heads were fired within the agency that runs voice of america. voice of america is just one network that runs alongside all the other international broadcasting entities in the u.s. government. you know, they're all ultimately derived from that original mission set in world war ii. it's voice of america, but it's also radio free europe, radio free asia. there's a cuban broadcasting service, the middle east broadcasting network. they're all run by the u.s. government. they're all supposed to be totally insulated from any domestic partisan politics in this country. they are supposed to be straight ne

the voa chief, amanda bennett, and her deputy resign suddenly and without notice.o nights after that, in what's being headlined as a wednesday night massacre, the heads of all those other networks all get fired all at once as well. radio free europe, radio liberty, radio free asia, the cuban broadcasting service, the middle east broadcasting network, fired, fired, fired, fired. no reason given for any of those network heads being fired, they were all just wiped out. so what's going on here? a couple of months ago, the president started denouncing the voice of america as, in his words, disgusting. and that seemed kind of out of the blue. but, you know, welcome to the trump era. but then the white house also published like a blog post, a newsletter item, it's hard to tell exactly what this is, but they published this thing denouncing the voice of america, specifically because voa had the temerity to run an ap article, they ran an associated press article on their website about china lifting its lockdown in wuhan for the coronavirus. all sorts of news organizations ru

are you worried about voa? are you worried about those types of capacities of the u.s.overnment during the trump presidency? >> i'm worried that our entire strategic communications capability has been dramatically weakened since the end of the cold war. you know, in the late 1990s, because of budgetary and other reasons, the u.s. congress eliminated the united states information agency. this was an agency under ronald reagan and john f. kennedy and dwight eisenhower, under leaders like edward r. murrow and charlie wick in the reagan administration had enormous influence and enormous reach around the world. and one of the reasons that voa was so important was that people around the world in eastern europe and in the soviet union, when they could get voa believed it gave them an honest and objective view of what was going on in the world. the voa would also report what was going on in the united states, and the truth is most presidents really got annoyed by what voa said about what was going on in the united states because it was often very revealing and very honest about

the voa also would record what was going on in the united states. and the truth is most presidents really got annoyed by what voa said about what was going on in the united states because it was often very revealing about -- and very honest about problems we had here internally. but it had a great deal of credibility around the world. and there were other radios and originally operated by ci like raid fro free liberty, radio europe and others. all of those have basically been dismantled. and so when you have a country like china that has a global communication strategy and they've invested billions and billions of dollars in it, in acquiring networks and broadcasting to every country in the world and -- and owning networks in various countries and so on, we don't have anything comparable to that today. and in this rivalry we're going to have -- we have with china going forward, we're going to need these kinds of tools. because if we're lucky and we're smart, we can avoid a military conflict with china, but that means that the -- that the rivalry wil

trump allies like steve bannon have been trying to take control of voa and other parts of the agencyration day. this has been going on for years, but the senate slow-rolled the white house and not until earlier this month did michael pac get confirmed as the new trump-appointed ceo of the agency. well, now heads have rolled and trump loyalists are taking the place of some of the ousted organization heads. one of the many people ousted in recent days is karen, joining me now to talk more about this along with "washington post" reporter sarah ellison who has been all over this story. karen, tell us briefly, why should viewers care about what happens at usagf? >> make no mistake, brian, what happened wednesday night is a win for america's adversaries. the ceos were fired were racking up big wins against china, russia, iran, north korea. for instance, they had a 24/7 russian language global digital and broadcasting network that was broadcasting to russians what was really happening. this is really concerning. and, you know, as you've covered, the disinformation battle has come home. when

he's taking over and that's why these two leaders of voa stepped down yesterday.hey said, hey, the new guy can bring in whoever he wants but there's a lot of fear that this is going to be an attempt to turn the news operation into a trump mouthpiece, into the trump propaganda machine. pack swears he won't do that, but that's the fear among journalists and yesterday, jim acosta reported that sebastian gorka is being talked about as a possible board member. gorka, the trump loyalist, former white house aide. if that is what happens, if we see voice of america populated by trump loyalists that's very concerning about the future of this operation. >> brian, will it's talk about what's happening in oklahoma state. one of the football players really did not like the t-shirt that his coach was wearing. >> this is wild, yeah. >> it is wild. it was for oan, you know, one of these cockamamie, alleged news sites. so what happened? >> i was wondering -- >> so was i. >> it's the very small, but influential right wing channel. influential because president trump watches it. tha

not just taking out the top leaders of voa, bad as that was. a bad warning sign, but going to advisory boards that include people like ambassador ryan crocker. all of these independent non-partisan people, and the experts who run these different, these different video programs, language experts, all of these people who are so experienced as journalists. what do you make of it? >> yeah. it's -- it's a bit of a tragedy, andrea. u.s. international broadcasting is vast. it has a 750 million dollar budget, not trivial, even in the federal government it grew out of the cold war where we were trying to reach people around the world, and talk about freedom with independent press, and that's basically what it has been. there's about 3,500 employees. they devoutly believe in their mission to bring objective, fair-minded news to people around the world. the appointment of michael pack and approval of michael pack is, he's kind of a propagandist. everybody who's been head of doa and the broadcaster board of governors, super global media have been fair-mind

that's not nearly as troubling as the more recent news from voa news.com on march 14, 2020, they are talking about the changes in tactics from the cartel. in this story it talks about how the cartel carries machine guns and hand grenades and even once used rocket launchers to shoot down mexican military helicopter. has rocketdversary launchers, grenades, if they have that type of weaponry and we were to pass a bill the democratic majority offered, we would literally be inserting some of the bravest americans into an unfair fight against those who are uniquely challenging and are uniquely dangerous. feature of just a the fight on the u.s. mexico border, it's also something we deal with in the state of florida. it is the trump administration's good work to make the u.s.-mexico border less permissive continues, the florida straits become even more of an attractive option for drug cartels and i cite an article from 2014 that walks through the specific needs of state law enforcement in florida and of local law enforcement in florida to head off the weaponry that would allow us to fight ag