Federal judge blocks Trump's efforts to dismantle Voice of America radio service

A federal judge has halted the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle the US international broadcaster Voice of America, calling the move a "classic case of arbitrary and capricious decision making."

Judge James Paul Oetken blocked the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which runs Voice of America, from firing more than 1,200 journalists, engineers and other staff that it sidelined two weeks ago in the wake of President Donald Trump ordering its funding slashed.

Oetken issued a temporary restraining order barring the agency from "any further attempt to terminate, reduce-in-force, place on leave, or furlough" employees or contractors, and from closing any offices or requiring overseas employees to return to the US.

The order also bars the USAGM from terminating grant funding for its other broadcast outlets, including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Radio Free Afghanistan.

The agency said on Thursday it was restoring Radio Free Europe's funding after a judge in Washington DC ordered it to do so.

"This is a decisive victory for press freedom and the First Amendment, and a sharp rebuke" to the Trump administration's "utter disregard for the principles that define our democracy," said the plaintiffs' lawyer, Andrew G. Celli Jr.

Trump administration's approach criticised

At a hearing Friday in Manhattan on Friday, Oetken faulted the Trump administration for "taking a sledgehammer to an agency that has been statutorily authorised and funded by Congress."

The judge criticised the agency's leadership, including special adviser Kari Lake, for pulling the plug "seemingly overnight" on the US government's global, soft-power platform with "no consideration of the effects."

Oetken ruled after a coalition of Voice of America journalists, labour unions and the nonprofit journalism advocacy group Reporters Without Borders sued the Trump administration last week to block the cuts.

Ultimately, they seek to have VOA return to the air.

The plaintiffs argued the shutdown violated a court's finding during Trump's first term that VOA journalists have a free-speech firewall protecting them from White House interference.

Their absence from the airwaves has left a vacuum that's being filled by "propagandists whose messages will monopolise global airwaves," the complainants said.

Trump and other Republicans have accused Voice of America of a "leftist bias" and failing to project "pro-American" values to its worldwide audience, even though it is mandated by congress to serve as a non-partisan news organisation.

Voice of America went off the air soon after Trump issued an executive order on 14 March that pared funding to the USAGM and six other unrelated federal entities, part of his campaign to shrink government and align its with his political agenda.

The White House called the service, which has existed since 1942, "The Voice of Radical America" and said Trump's order would "ensure that taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda."

It cited coverage it claimed was "too favourable" to former President Joe Biden, as well as stories about white privilege, racial profiling and transgender migrants seeking asylum.

Congress has appropriated nearly $860 million (€794 million) for the USAGM for the current fiscal year.