[IMPORTANT: Make this 4 times longer with much more detail]
Insider Your all-access pass to FP ‘We’re Not Going Anywhere’ The CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty on his court battle with the Trump administration. By Rishi Iyengar , a reporter at Foreign Policy . Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty CEO Stephen Capus is pictured during an AFP interview at the outlet’s headquarters in Prague on April 3. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty CEO Stephen Capus is pictured during an AFP interview at the outlet’s headquarters in Prague on April 3. Michal Cizek/AFP via Getty Images My FP: Follow topics and authors to get straight to what you like. Exclusively for FP subscribers. Subscribe Now | Log In Politics United States Russia Europe Ukraine Rishi Iyengar April 10, 2025, 1:01 PM Comment icon View Comments ( 0 ) In the last two months, more than 50,000 U.S. government employees have been fired, put on leave, or told to halt work—most of them by the writ of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But some cuts, such as the one gutting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), came directly from the pen of President Donald Trump. In an executive order signed last month, Trump ordered widespread cuts to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a congressionally funded organization that oversees several journalistic outlets, including RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America. RFE/RL fought back, swiftly filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration. It yielded almost immediate success—at least on paper—when the administration said it would reinstate its approximately $77 million funding grant. But most of that money is still “sitting in somebody’s bank account,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in an interview with Foreign Policy . As of this week, USAGM has been ordered by a federal judge to provide RFE/RL with a new grant agreement. In the last two months, more than 50,000 U.S. government employees have been fired, put on leave, or told to halt work—most of them by the writ of billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). But some cuts, such as the one gutting Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), came directly from the pen of President Donald Trump. In an executive order signed last month, Trump ordered widespread cuts to the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), a congressionally funded organization that oversees several journalistic outlets, including RFE/RL, Radio Free Asia, and Voice of America. RFE/RL fought back, swiftly filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration. It yielded almost immediate success—at least on paper—when the administration said it would reinstate its approximately $77 million funding grant. But most of that money is still “sitting in somebody’s bank account,” RFE/RL President and CEO Stephen Capus said in an interview with Foreign Policy . As of this week, USAGM has been ordered by a federal judge to provide RFE/RL with a new grant agreement. Trending Articles Trump, Bukele Discuss Deportation Flights to El Salvador Bukele has played an integral role in the White House’s migration crackdown. Powered By Advertisement Trump, Bukele Discuss Deportation Flights to El Salvador X Speaking from the outlet’s offices in the Czech capital of Prague on April 8, Capus—who previously spent two decades as a journalist and an executive at NBC—detailed the motivations and mechanics of RFE/RL’s legal battle with Trump, the expressions of support they’ve gotten from European leaders, and the lessons for U.S. media. This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. Foreign Policy: You got the Trump administration to publicly back down in its efforts to shut down your organization. What’s next? Stephen Capus: We went to court exactly three weeks ago, which was three days after USAGM tried to terminate our grant agreement. We moved very quickly in the courts because we believe this is an unlawful act, that they had not presented any reason, any grounds for termination, and that they had given us no justification for withholding congressionally appropriated funds. So, at that time, we requested a temporary restraining order to prevent them from doing the grants termination, and then we requested a preliminary injunction around their continued efforts to withhold the $77 million of congressionally appropriated funds. We need the funds to keep going. The court has sided with us so far, and we believe we have a strong case to make. The court strategy is one of many things that we’re doing right now. But it is the quickest way to get access to our funds. Today [April 8], we received $2.8 million from them, which was for a very brief phase. So we still are owed $74.2 million. I don’t know why they decided to give us those funds now, but we’re still waiting for April. It’s now more than a week delayed. The funds that are sitting in somebody’s bank account doing no good for anyone could be used to keep us within operation through the end of the fiscal year as Congress intended. We’re not even jumping up and down demanding our money. Congress has spoken—the will of Congress is very clear. There’s a line in the U.S. budget that says we shall receive this amount of money with our name. All of this could help a great deal. We have a multinational workforce from people who grew up in some very, very difficult areas, like Afghanistan, Iran, Belarus, and Russia. If we go out of business as they [the Trump administration] are trying to do, then what happens to those people? Are they supposed to just simply go back to Iran? Or Kyrgyzstan? Or any of these other places that now call us foreign agents ? I’m really looking for a sign that the people at USAGM understand the implications of their move. I haven’t heard a single expression of support. Instead, I hear them disparaging us, using childish language to describe us. It’s a real blow to the people who risk everything to come and work for us because they believe in the mission. FP: You mentioned that the courts are just one of the strategies you’re looking at. What are the others? Are you looking at other funding sources or backing from European governments? SC: We’ve not exhausted all the possibilities with the United States. We’re still in court—nothing that I do will put that at risk. Sign up for Editors’ Picks A curated selection of FP’s must-read stories. Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time. Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up You’re on the list! More ways to stay updated on global news: FP Live Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up World Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up China Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up South Asia Brief Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up Situation Report Enter your email Sign Up ✓ Signed Up View All Newsletters We also have bipartisan support inside Congress. The United States options are what we’ve relied on for 75 years, and this is what we’re going to continue to aggressively explore. But something happened the day that [then-USAGM senior advisor] Kari Lake announced that she was going to close our grant agreement—unceremoniously, no advance warning, no indication to us that this was going to happen. I immediately started getting calls of support from various European leaders. The Czech minister of foreign affairs was the first one, and very quickly, high-ranking European officials stepped forward. And almost to a person, they said to me: “This is deeply meaningful to me personally and my family. This was a lifeline to us any number of different times, including recently when we wanted to know what was happening in Ukraine.” We have journalists there who’ve risked everything to try to make sure that the world still knows what’s going on there. So they came forward and they said: “We believe in this mission. We don’t want to see it go away. Tell us how we can support.” This is not the time for me to say to them: “OK, give us this, and everything will be OK.” It’s not the right time for that. But believe me, having that overwhelming response from the world community has been very, very gratifying, and it’s a little bit different than what we’ve heard from Washington. What it turns into long term? It’s premature to say anything because we are a nonprofit corporation headquartered in the great state of Delaware, and that doesn’t change tomorrow. It doesn’t change the next day. Get us our operating funds. If you want to cut us loose at that point, then let’s have a conversation. Thank goodness, though, for those European leaders, those brave leaders, to step up and say: “We get it, we feel it, we understand it. We are terrified at the thought of Russia having all of this information space to themselves.” It’s not like we’re the only ones doing it, but we’re the most successful. We’ve got the biggest audiences. We’ve got 75 years of brand equity and relationships with our audiences. You know, we’re reaching 9 percent of the Russian audience on average every week. We’re reaching 10 percent of the Iranian audience on average every week. We’re reaching close to 40 percent of the Ukrainian audience every week. Why is that? We’re doing something different in Ukraine. We’re covering Russian atrocities, we’re covering Russian war crimes, and we’re keeping the [Ukrainian] government accountable in the anti-corruption space. FP: RFE/RL was set up to counter hostility to free speech and a free press in authoritarian nations. How do you view that same type of hostility now being shown by the U.S. government? SC: Well, I don’t know what’s motivating them right now to take these actions. We’ve all seen what Elon Musk is up to in DOGE and the desire to save money—OK, I’m a proud American taxpayer, I like government efficiency, too, but I also have a healthy respect for our people who are doing this kind of work. Generally speaking, I’m going to support the countries that want to have a free press and want to have access. Notions of a free press help keep societies healthier. It’s part of the reason that when we do our programming in some of the places that I listed before, I know we’re a thorn in their sides. I know that they don’t want the kind of coverage that we give to these regimes, and they go to great lengths to try to shut down our websites, block our feeds, beat up our journalists, and throw them in jail. The head of Russia’s RT went on the air recently gloating that they’ve been trying to do this sort of thing to us for years, and she [basically] said : “We didn’t succeed, but thanks to the United States, it’s happening for us. Thank you, President Trump.” That should give everybody pause. Everybody should be nervous if people like that are celebrating. Look at some of the rhetoric from China and Iran. It makes me personally ill to see that. FP: What would your advice be to the American media that is trying to cover the Trump administration and its more authoritarian behavior? SC: I think that the issues are somewhat different. We view this as an existential threat. I don’t think that the American media is facing an existential threat when the president chooses to criticize The Associated Press for the reasons that we’ve all seen, so it’s a little bit different. I would just say that I know that this mission is respected, is valued, and is needed to keep everyone safe. I like the work I did at NBC— The Today Show , Nightly News , Meet the Press —that was important. Is it the kind of thing that Americans at home are kept safe by? I don’t think it’s at the same degree. This work that we’re doing now is of vital importance. And it is something that we operate in concert with the national security interests of people all over the free world. I think all democratic values are worth safeguarding and jealously protecting at all costs. I’m not looking to get involved in the U.S. internal politics. I’m not saying that there were political reasons behind these moves. I don’t know what the motivation has been—it might simply be part of the DOGE efforts. But regardless of the intent, the inescapable conclusion is the world is not going to be as safe of a place without us. That’s what we hear from our supporters in Congress, that’s what I hear from government leaders all across Europe, and that’s why people come and do the kind of work that they do, at great personal risk in many cases. FP: And what would your message be to other U.S. government agencies facing these cuts from the Trump administration that you have fought back against? SC: I’m really reluctant to get in the middle of the U.S. political process right now, and I’ve got my hands full just with this case. If anybody wants to take away some important things from our success thus far, it is: Act quickly, be prepared as much as possible, and if you have something worth fighting for, keep going. FP: Radio Free Europe was, of course, created to go behind the Iron Curtain. How do you feel about the way Trump and the Trump administration have been dealing with Russia, and how are you seeing it in the regions where you broadcast? SC: It’s not my place to weigh in on the political moves of the president. But what I would point out, and I do point out every time I’m in Washington, especially with members of Congress, [is that] our people who are based in Ukraine—which include Ukrainian journalists, which include people speaking in Russian for Russian audiences—all those people have told the world under no uncertain terms what’s going on there, including the outright commitment of war crimes that have happened in Ukraine, targeting a civilian population, looking at those schoolkids who were bombed to smithereens by Russian missiles. But it doesn’t just stop there. At the same time, we’re holding the Ukrainian government accountable for all of this money that has poured in there. Everybody wants to follow the money. Everybody wants to know how true to anti-corruption measures are the Ukrainians being. We do this all day, every day. And what I would say to President Trump or what I’d say to our stakeholders in Congress: That’s the kind of work that should be supported. It helps the world, and [Ukrainian] President [Volodymyr] Zelensky understands the importance of it. We’ve spoken face to face about it, and I believe it’s all true. We document the war crimes. We follow the money. Ukraine is a beautiful country with wonderful people who are not just living in their evacuation shelters. They are resilient. They are proud. They are independent. We’ve had to reduce the size of the staff, to slow our rate of spend. But you know what? Every single language service is existing right now. In some cases, people are volunteering. We program for 23 countries, 27 different languages—every single one of those services is still operating right now, even though they told us weeks and weeks ago that we needed to stop. We’re not going anywhere. Rishi Iyengar is a reporter at Foreign Policy . X: @Iyengarish Read More On Donald Trump | Europe | Media | Politics | Russia | Ukraine | United States Join the Conversation Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription. Already a subscriber? Log In . Subscribe Subscribe View 0 Comments Join the Conversation Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now. Subscribe Subscribe Not your account? Log out View 0 Comments Join the Conversation Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs. You are commenting as . Change your username | Log out Change your username: Username I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . 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