Silencing America’s Voice

How Trump is Tearing Down Our Defenses Against Disinformation

Back in the days when news arrived on our doorsteps in crisp, folded pages, propaganda was a blunt instrument. Disinformation — or dezinformatsiya, as the Russians coined it — was spread through planted articles in obscure publications, hoping unwitting American editors would pick them up and run them. This tactic, which Moscow has been perfecting for over a century, subtly shaped American perceptions from afar.

Flash forward to today, and dezinformatsiya is a far more sophisticated affair. Now, it’s a 24/7 operation, driven by small armies of Russian trolls, bot networks, and algorithmic manipulation. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and X are the new battlegrounds, where fake accounts amplify false narratives, flooding the digital space with seemingly legitimate content designed to confuse, divide, and manipulate. The days of gatekeepers ensuring journalistic integrity are gone, replaced by a chaotic, user-driven news ecosystem where misinformation spreads faster than truth.

Let’s take a very recent example. Just yesterday, Emanuel Macron and other European leaders were in Ukraine to advocate for a cease-fire, and threaten further sanctions on Russia if they don’t comply (of course Trump later undermined their efforts because, of course.) In the train all the leaders gathered together in a friendly way, and a video of the encounter was released. In it, Emanuel Macron is seen to palm a crumpled up tissue because, well who wants a used tissue in the video. Someone, likely Russia, made a grainy version of the video where the tissue looked like, sort of, a bag of cocaine. Like wildfire it spread, Macron and world leaders were doing lines of Coke in a train to Ukraine. Of course, it’s insane, but spread nevertheless. Here is an example.

This modern wave of propaganda is effective precisely because tens of millions of Americans have been conditioned to distrust traditional media. Fox News and others have spent decades seeding this doubt, eroding public faith in professional journalism. The 2016 election stands as a stark example: Russia’s coordinated disinformation campaign, amplified by domestic voices, helped tip the scales toward Donald Trump.

In the aftermath, the U.S. took steps to counter this threat. We ramped up our defenses, bolstered cybersecurity, and beefed up our information warfare capabilities. But now, under President Trump, we’re unilaterally disarming, handing the field back to our adversaries.

In just a few short months, this administration has dismantled critical pieces of our information defense. The Voice of America (VoA), which has provided objective news to 325 million people worldwide, was effectively silenced. Long-standing allies like Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and Radio Marti have seen their operations slashed or shuttered. These outlets, once symbols of American openness and honesty, are being stripped of their voices.

Even more damaging, Trump closed the State Department’s Office on Foreign Disinformation, established in 2016 to counter Russian, Chinese, Iranian, and terrorist propaganda. This small but vital unit of 40 professionals played a crucial role in identifying and neutralizing disinformation. Despite its effectiveness, the office was dissolved, ostensibly because its work was perceived as hostile to Trump’s political allies. In a bitter irony, the very act of shuttering this office became a piece of disinformation itself — a “victory” for those who claim the deep state is out to undermine conservative voices.

The attack on VoA, however, is more personal for Trump. He has harbored a grudge against the network’s journalists since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, when their factual reporting often contradicted his misleading claims. The grudge only deepened after the 2020 election, when VoA provided accurate coverage that undermined Trump’s baseless claims of widespread voter fraud. Known for his commitment to vengeance, Trump put VoA’s 1,000-plus staff on administrative leave in March, effectively silencing the service. Legal challenges have stalled the shutdown, but the administration’s latest move may render those efforts moot.

Now, the Trump administration has announced plans to reopen VoA, but with a catch: it will replace some of its reporting with content from One America News (OAN), the pro-Trump outlet known for its conspiratorial, often factually dubious coverage. OAN, which supported Trump’s 2016 candidacy from the start, stands to gain a massive financial boost from a government contract, further blurring the line between propaganda and state-sponsored media. The implications are staggering — Trump will soon have a platform to broadcast pro-Trump “news” to the world in 49 languages, reinforcing his personal brand at the expense of American credibility.

As with so many of Trump’s policies, this move is a win for him but a loss for the country. It makes us vulnerable to foreign propaganda and erodes our reputation as a reliable, truthful voice on the global stage. If we’re not careful, we risk becoming just another untrustworthy source of dezinformatsiya — a tragic echo of the very forces we once sought to counter.