HOUSTON, United States 

More than 600 federal workers at Voice of America (VOA) news service were handed layoff notices on Friday by the Trump administration, according to the New York Times.

The move is part of President Donald Trump's plan to gut federally funded news organizations he considers to be "anti-American."

The president singled out VOA in March, accusing the news service of spreading partisan propaganda and calling it "the voice of radical America."

Trump then signed an executive order calling for the dismantling of VOA, putting nearly all of its reporters on paid leave and ceasing its news operations for the first time since it was founded in 1942, during World War II.

The layoffs will shrink the VOA staff to less than 200, around one-seventh of its size at the beginning of 2025. Workers will be on paid leave until they are officially terminated on Sept. 1.

Kari Lake, who Trump appointed senior adviser at the news service’s oversight organization, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), notified Congress earlier this month that she intended to eliminate most of VOA's staff.

She said the minimum number of employees necessary to run the media outlet would be retained, according to laws passed by Congress to establish and fund it.

Voice of America is "a bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy," Lake claimed in a statement, adding that the termination of 639 VOA employees would eliminate "dysfunction, bias and waste."

Members of Trump’s team, including billionaire Elon Musk, who left government service last month, have made similarly sweeping claims in seeking to slash many government agencies, but most did not hold up under scrutiny.

Lake’s decision "spells the death of 83 years of independent journalism that upholds US ideals of democracy and freedom around the world," Patsy Widakuswara, a former Voice of America White House bureau chief who was placed on leave, said in a statement.

Widakuswara is leading a lawsuit filed against Lake and USAGM.

She encouraged Congress to intervene and support Voice of America, which was founded to combat Nazi propaganda and provide news services in countries that suppress independent reporting and free speech.

"Moscow, Beijing, Tehran and extremist groups are flooding the global information space with anti-America propaganda," said Widakuswara. "Do not cede this ground by silencing America’s voice."