Kari Lake's Vision for Voice of America

somebody said to me you're just going to turn it into Trump TV no that's not what I want I don't believe that's what president Trump wants I don't think the American people want that at Turning Point sest conference in Phoenix Arizona I sat down with former TV anchor Carrie Lake Trump's pick to head Voice of America I asked her about her approach to journalism and what voice of America will look like once she takes over this is American th leaders and I'm Yan Kell [Music] lake so good to have you back on American thought leaders I'm happy to be here i' I've loved your work this is such an important show and I've enjoyed the interviews you do so I'm honored to be here well you've said that with VA which is of course your new uh appointment or nomination by President Trump that you're going to be a it's going to become a nightmare for fake news if I if I recall that correctly well I think I would like to make sure that vaa voice of America is doing an Exemplar job telling the story of America to the world and I've seen some really great pieces that I've been looking at in the last few days that have come out of vaa and I want to make sure that we're doing all really top-notch journalism and I and I believe that we will be doing that um I want to go in and improve it and make sure that the product is more compelling so that it's actually reaching more people around the globe we can change hearts and Minds around the globe bring uh information and journalism to people in countries that don't have access to a free press and we should be telling a true story of what America is and make sure that we're not doing in a biased fashion but in a way that is fair and accurate that's all we want somebody the other day because they know that I have a close relationship with President Trump I love president Trump because as a mother and a citizen of Arizona I've seen what he did to make our state safer to make our families safer and so that's why I love him I think his policies are great but somebody said to me you're just going to turn it into Trump TV no that's not what I want I don't believe that's what president Trump wants I don't think the American people want that but what we do want is to be able to tune in or we want the world to be tuning in and getting a fair and accurate portrayal of this great nation of ours there going to be a lot of news happening in the next four years um we're going into what president Trump calls the Golden Era the Golden Age great things will be happening important uh stories are going to be transpiring whether it be dealing with securing our border doing a a massive repat creation operation and I want to make sure and I think the American people expect this that this is being covered accurately and fairly without bias and so I guess the coraly of that is you must believe that a lot of the media that has been done is somehow has been biased let's just take president Trump and let's look at how the corporate media has covered him from the minute almost the minute he came down the escalator it's been an 8 10e smear campaign on one man they haven't covered his family Fairly they didn't cover his policies fairly they lied about Russia gate they lied about covid they lied about so many things and all you have to do is go back and look at what the media has done and I'm not lumping everybody in I've seen some really good coverage out of Epic Times Fair balanced coverage not prot Trump but coverage that's that's balanced and fair and I know it because I worked in a newsroom for 30 years 95% of The Newsroom and this is this is across the board in corporate media are journalists who are left leaning now listen I know everybody has opinions I don't believe there's anybody who's truly neutral out there because we all have kind of our own opinions the question is as a journalist can you set those opinions aside while you're doing your job as a journalist and knowing where you stand on an issue if you stand at a very strongly feel one way about an issue can you balance that out so that when you're covering that issue it's covered fairly and we need to work and strive for that in in journalism I was really hoping Yan that the fake news the corporate media would self-correct realize the errors of their way and start to reform themselves and say look this is not sustainable the uh the the bias reporting that they're putting out is not sustainable but I haven't seen that I'm still seeing non-stop incessant attacks on President Trump every pick that he has put out they're attacking I don't call that when Biden got into office I don't recall the uh news criticizing every single one of his picks for cabinet positions uh appointments that he was making as a matter of fact that you know we had a guy who was a crossdressing kleptomaniac who Biden put in charge of nuclear waste in our country I didn't see one person in the fake news media say a peep about that and yet right now with Trump they're just going at him they're going after his nominations and it's already starting back up but the good news and the difference between now and 2016 2017 is that they have lost so much of their viewership and their readers over that time that they've almost made themselves obsolete they've been replaced with new media with new voices you know Elon Musk is famous for saying we are the news now Twitter is the news and um we're seeing a really big change in the landscape of Journalism thank God you started talking a little bit about your background you've spent you know multiple decades in the news media I know as a fact you've won a number of emys actually for for your reporting but you tell us a little bit about that background because I suspect a lot of people don't know that well I I think I've made a bigger name for myself in politics but I was a well-known household name in Arizona for 27 years covering Arizona and then a few years before that covering uh back news back in my um home state in Iowa and Illinois and the Quad Cities region along the Mississippi River but I spent so many years covering Arizona fairly in this beautiful state so I'm already a household name here and and I became a household name with my fair coverage and my coverage where I I think I was very successful at connecting with the people of this state journalism is U more than just the facts man it's also being able to connect with people so that they're willing to then share their story with you and um I had a background of doing that I covered every issue from the border to water to you know everyday things that would happen naturally crime unfortunately uh to really heartfelt warm stories of people persevering here in our beautiful Arizona and I loved being a journalist my favorite part even though I eventually became the main news anchor my favorite part of my job was always the reporting part was telling the stories I mean sitting at a news desk just reading um the news you know it's it's fine but the real Joy is in going out there and Reporting the news and so i' I've had an illustrious career it was during that career um being number one I helped bring our ratings to number one we maintain those number one ratings for 27 years 22 years at the last station that I worked at the fox station and we maintained those number one ratings that's not an easy task in the competitive world of of news media but we did that because I was fair I was balanced and uh covered everybody the way that I think they would want to be covered with a a journalist who was going to listen to them and they didn't have to cringe and go how is this story going to be played out is she going to twist my words I never did that and I took great pride in the way I covered and handled myself as a journalist but it was during Co that I walked away I just said I I can't do this anymore I'm realizing that the media has stopped asking questions tough questions they they've stopped questioning the government at a time when we needed to pin down the government on why their covid response was the way it was why they were forcing things like masks and and unvetted shots on the people when we needed journalism the most the corporate media let us down they didn't ask those questions and when I realized that it was impossible to do my job in the manner in which I wanted to do it which was at pushing back against the government line and I couldn't do that then I said then I don't want to do the job and that's why I walked away that's right and you left very with a very prominent viral video explaining some of the things I remember watching it at the time I didn't mean I didn't know it was going to be a viral video but after spending 27 years covering this state I didn't want to be the kind of person who just disappeared you know I covered I was in the homes of people I did 3 hours of live broadcasting a day I was in the people's homes for 3 hours a day day roughly 27 years I didn't want to just disappear I felt that I owed it to the people of Arizona to tell them why I was leaving why would I walk away in the middle of a you know seven figure contract walk away um and not not to take another job just because I didn't believe in what the product was any longer and I wanted them to know and so I put a video out basically saying you know journalism's changed a lot in some ways I think it it's dead although since then I think it's starting to revive and we're we're a new kind of a new vein of Journalism but at the time I said it's dead they're not asking questions and I don't want to take part in that and I I don't know what my next step will be but I think God will have my back and overnight I put that video out it went viral and that's how I ended up in politics Johan I was just going to go I was looking forward to living a quiet life um out of the public eye because I've been in the public guy for so long in Arizona but I was thinking you know it'll be nice to actually live a private life I'm looking forward to that I did that video it went viral around the globe thousands of people were reaching out saying oh my gosh we knew something was wrong we suspected something was wrong and you just verified it we knew the media was lying to us you know thank you for your honesty and courage and then one thing that started happening with the great people of Arizona is they started reaching out to me and Dro not one or two dozens upon dozens of people said we love you thank you for covering our state fairly we would you please consider running for office we need someone who understands the issues of our state who understands um the people of our state and who we trust to get into politics and at first I laughed I thought oh my gosh they must think I'm crazy because who in their right mind would go into politics it's such an ugly ugly field uh I guess you can call it and but then after so many people kept saying it I kind of felt like maybe God was tapping me on the shoulder saying I freed you up for this moment and you know when one person tells you something and then a second person and a third you have to start listening and that's when I worked I talked to my husband Jeff and said you know what why not isn't that what our founding fathers expected that real citizens would step forward and run for office and little did I know in doing that which I is a very Noble thing to do the fake news lost their minds I mean they started attacking me relentlessly 100% attack coverage when I ran for governor 100% attacks no positive stories all negative filled with lies I understand president Trump because he and I have both been the victim of just a very uh deceptive nefarious fake news coming after him coming after me we've seen uh elections that aren't run fairly and then we've watched as the media doesn't ask any questions about that my question is why aren't they asking questions do you know well so the I guess the question on everybody's mind right at this point might be yes you've been through a lot yeah can you really come back from politics and as you become the person who runs the voice of America this institution that is the voice of America across the world could you can you really do that can you really push back against an Administration that that's run by President Trump if that's needed absolutely absolutely you know it's interesting I've had many conversations with President Trump we don't agree on everything I've actually said you know said many things to him where I was pushing something and maybe he disagreed with me and I and I think that might be why he likes me because I am somebody who says you know I actually think this not that but it's not my job to go in there and make it Trump TV as I said but it's also not our job to go in there and unduly criticize president Trump I I just want to see Fair coverage I think that's what he wants he didn't when he when he offered me the job did not say go in there and turn it into magga TV he said make it fair and accurate make sure they're fair and accurate that's what he said and I want to do that the the beautiful thing we're here at the Turning Point event and there's so many incredible people many of whom live in Arizona nobody here wants to see just biased news they want to see something Fair the weird thing is though it's so infrequent that you see the um mainstream media corporate news media cover anything Trump Trump does just fairly with neutrality that when you see it it almost feels like a prot trump piece of Journalism when in fact it's just being fair and so we're going to strive to do that I'm not going to be a journalist there I'm going to be the director and I'm going to expect that the journalists there are able to cover this Administration fairly so that the story going out across the globe is a fair interpretation of what's happening in America Well Carrie Lake it's such a pleasure to have had you on again thank you so much and thank you to The Epic Times I really believe that you have um done an Exemplar job at covering everything from covid to the situation with the CCP in China to presidential elections and I always appreciate it when I when I read a story from epic times I don't always agree with everything but I always know we're not going to have um sound bites that are twisted and uh words that are taken out of context and so I really appreciate that Yan oh I greatly appreciate that comment thank you so much thank you all for joining car Lake and me on this episode of American thought leaders I'm your host Yan Kell [Music]