USAGM expands global coverage after Maduro extracted, Iran protests surge

EXCLUSIVE: As protests erupted in Iran and a dramatic U.S. operation unfolded in Venezuela, the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM) moved quickly to disseminate information in some of the most tightly controlled media environments in the world, agency director Kari Lake told Fox News Digital in an interview.

In the early morning hours of January 3, reports began to circulate of a law enforcement operation by the U.S. military to remove Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, prompting USAGM, the agency responsible for disseminating U.S. information to areas where press freedom is restricted, to take immediate action.

“I learned about the situation in Venezuela, the incredible courage of our military who extracted Maduro,” Lake said. “And as soon as I heard about it, I called the team in Miami that runs our broadcast office in Cuba.”

Lake described a rapid expansion of its media coverage, with the agency increasing its broadcasts, expanding its language services and increasing its staff within hours to reach audiences via Radio Martí and Martí Noticias from Miami, broadcasting directly to Cuba, Venezuela and throughout Latin America.

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Venezuelans living in Peru celebrate near the Venezuelan embassy in Lima on January 3, 2026, after President Donald Trump (L) announced that U.S. forces had captured Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. (Getty Images)

“They were immediately deployed to the newsroom and immediately started covering what was happening,” Lake said. “They covered it in Spanish for people in Cuba, and we also have affiliates all over the Caribbean. We take our show and put it out there so more people in Cuba can hear it.”

“When Cubans hear that Maduro has been overthrown, it gives them hope that they too can one day have that freedom. What we want to see is people standing up and saying: we want freedom, we want conditions to improve. We don’t want to live this way anymore. So we’ve done incredible, ongoing coverage.”

USAGM’s Voice of America live-streamed Trump’s key speeches on Venezuela while covering the latest developments, congressional reaction and responses to Venezuela, reaching more than 6.6 million global audience impressions.

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Kari Lake, senior advisor to the US Agency for Global Media.

About a week before explosions rocked Venezuela during Maduro’s removal, USAGM intervened in another global crisis when protests erupted in the streets of Iran as citizens mobilized against Khomeini’s regime in one of the world’s most media-restricted regions.

Lake spoke to Fox News Digital about how his team also took action in this case and immediately began trying to reach as many Iranians as possible with U.S.-backed coverage.

“Think about the people on the ground in Iran,” Lake said. “The Iranian people have been subjected to horrible conditions under a dictator and a regime that is just cruel for 47 years. They don’t get a fair media outlet. They don’t get honest coverage there. We’ve been able to provide them with honest coverage.”

“We are working to broadcast more. We are hiring contractors to improve our coverage and add additional hours to the coverage. What we are watching on the streets of this country of Iran is historic. People are standing up to say we don’t care anymore. We need to get our freedom back and we are here to do this coverage.”

After protests broke out in Iran, USAGM quickly expanded its coverage through Voice of America’s Persian-language service, significantly increasing satellite television programming aimed at Iranian audiences. During the first 12 days of unrest, the service added seven additional hours of live broadcasts, including two one-hour prime-time newscasts on January 3 and 4, while extending its regular evening newscasts by one to two hours as the protests spread.

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Iranian protesters are attempting to take control of two cities in western Iran as unrest continues nationwide, with demonstrators chanting “Death to Khamenei” in the streets. (Getty)

As the unrest continued, VOA’s Persian-language service also ramped up its digital and social media presence, publishing 52 web articles focused on the protests through January 7. During the same period, the service released more than 1,700 pieces of content across six social media platforms, including more than 170 user-generated videos sent from Iran that showed protests and documented the regime’s repression.

The increase in media coverage, according to the agency, led to an increase in audience engagement in the form of VOA’s Persian website, recording a record 1.69 million daily visits on December 28. During the first 12 days of protests, video views jumped more than 160 percent and article views increased by nearly 80 percent, generating a total of approximately 13 million site visits during that period, an increase of 15 percent.

Lake told Fox News Digital that there is overlap between their coverage of Iran and Cuba, explaining that they relay information about what is happening in Venezuela to the Iranian people.

“People in Iran are very interested in what happened in Venezuela, and so we use both our Cuba Bureau broadcasts with our Farsi Persian services, and we kind of join forces and make sure that everyone realizes, that everyone who lives under these regimes realizes that people are uprising all over the world right now. “

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Nicolás Maduro is seen handcuffed after landing on a Manhattan heliport, escorted by heavily armed federal agents as they walk into an armored car en route to a Manhattan federal courthouse, January 5, 2026, in New York. (XNY/Star Max/GC Images via Getty Images)

“It’s such a historic moment and Cubans know what’s happening in Venezuela. Cubans now know what’s happening in Iran and vice versa. Iran realizes what happened in Venezuela and what happened in Cuba as well. It’s incredible. We are on the edge, I believe, not only of a peaceful world, but of a world where people are free in places where they haven’t felt that beautiful feeling of freedom in a long time. I’m happy with the work that we’re doing. We’re doing it with a skeleton staff, and it shows that the federal government no longer needs to be a bloated, slow-moving dinosaur.

Lake’s reference that the agency is no longer a “dinosaur” stems from her efforts to streamline an agency that she said was wasting taxpayer dollars and not sending a message across the world that stood up for America’s interests.

“We came into the agency and I had a very difficult job rightsizing the agency,” Lake explained, telling Fox News Digital that the previous administration’s USAGM was ineffective and sometimes delivered messages that were not “aligned” with the best interests of U.S. foreign policy.

“It was bloated. The president issued an executive order saying ‘bring this agency back to its statutory minimum,’ which means going back to what’s legally required and no more than that. Get rid of the excess and just do what’s legally required, and we were able to do that, and our critics sued us and said, oh, you’ll never be able to cover the news. What happens if a big story breaks?”

“Well, I worked in media for 30 years,” Lake said. “I know that when a big story breaks, you increase media coverage and that’s exactly what we did.”