Voice of America Throws Massive Shade in Their Report on Trump Attacking Voice of America

Alex Wong/Getty Images

After President Donald Trump went medieval on Voice of America at a coronavirus briefing, the outlet’s report on Trump’s remarks were chock full of dry and not-so-subtle shade.

During Wednesday’s White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, Trump repeatedly blasted VOA, baselessly accusing them of saying “disgusting” things about the United States and threatening to forcibly adjourn Congress so he can appoint a new head of the agency that oversees VOA.

The attack followed a White House blog post that accused VOA of amplifying Chinese “propaganda” and gave several purported examples, but did not claim the outlet was anti-American.

Trump’s attack put VOA in the awkward position of needing to cover the president’s remarks, while also responding to them. They responded with a mixture of overt pushback, some well-placed facts, and a killer citation that all added up to a dry critique of Trump’s effort against them.

Their report, entitled “Trump Threatens to Force Congress to Adjourn Over Stalled Nominees,” included factual information about the historical basis for Trump’s threat to adjourn Congress, noting the following:

The Constitution requires nominees to a number of senior administration posts to be confirmed by a majority vote in the Senate. However, on occasions when Congress is not in session, the president may make a “recess appointment,” which expires if the candidate has not been confirmed by the end of the next full session.

No president has ever exercised the specific authority to dissolve Congress in Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution.

The report also detailed Trump’s remarks about nominee Michael Pack, noting that “Trump cited Pack by name (but erroneously identified the body he would head as USAGM’s predecessor agency, the Broadcasting Board of Governors).”

The report made no mention of Pack’s explicit partisan political leanings, referring to him only as a “documentary filmmaker.”

It also included a lengthy statement from VOA Director Amanda Bennett, in which she pointedly said “judging from the way our audiences are surging to us seeking information they can rely on in this coronavirus crisis, the world believes in our mission. It’s hard work, and it’s important work, perhaps more than ever before.”

And in an internal email, Bennett told VOA staff to “not get distracted from the job in front of us” — a clear reference to Trump:

“For more than 75 years VOA has followed its mission of telling America’s story overseas and of bringing objective, fact-based information to places around the world that have no other access to it. As we have long said, we export the First Amendment,” said VOA Director Amanda Bennett in a prepared statement.

“I believe in that mission. And, judging from the way our audiences are surging to us seeking information they can rely on in this coronavirus crisis, the world believes in our mission. It’s hard work, and it’s important work, perhaps more than ever before.”

In a subsequent email to VOA’s employees, Bennett added: “We have a lot of work to do. It’s hard work and it’s important work. Let’s not get distracted from the job in front of us.”

VOA also pointedly debunked the White House’s complaints regarding the outlet’s coronavirus coverage — noting, for example, that the administration accused them of using “Communist government statistics to compare China’s coronavirus death toll to America’s,” when in fact they cited the Johns Hopkins University statistics that every media outlet is using.

But they also included a particularly choice quote from The New York Times, which called the administration’s complaints about VOA “a bizarre broadside,” and noted that “the charges hurled at the 75-year-old broadcaster seemed so overheated that some readers worried that hackers had infiltrated the White House’s networks.”

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!