Yesterday was World Press Freedom Day.

Press Freedom is at risk in every authoritarian regime, but also in the U.S. Trump has filed frivolous lawsuits against ABC and other news outlets. ABC paid him $15 million to make peace.

Trump sued CBS for $10 billion for editing a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris and is now in settlement talks. Editing a pre-taped interview is standard practice. The interview may last for an hour, but only 20 minutes is aired. Since Trump won the election, how was he damaged? It is hard to imagine he would win anything in court.

But Trump’s FCC chairman, Brendan Carr, has the power to destroy CBS. And the owner of CBS–Shari Redstone– is currently negotiating a lucrative deal that needs FCC approval. What will CBS pay Trump?

Given Trump’s legendary vindictiveness, will he succeed in eviscerating press freedom? Will the media dare criticize him as they have criticized every other president?

See CNN’s Brian Stelter on the state of press freedom today.

Now comes Trump’s puzzling vendetta against the Voice of America. In March, he issued an executive order to shut it down, although Republicans have traditionally supported it. On April 22, a federal district court judge overturned Trump’s executive order and demanded the rehiring of VOA staff. They were told they would be back at work in days. But yesterday, a three judge appeals court stayed the lower court’s ruling and VOA’s future is again in doubt. Two of the three appeals court judges were appointed by Trump.

The Voice of America has a unique responsibility. It brings objective, factual, unbiased news to people around the globe. For millions of people, the Voice of America is their only alternative to either government propaganda or no news at all.

Why does Donald Trump want to kill the Voice of America.

He has never explained.

He has called VOA “radical,” “leftwing,” and “woke,” but there is no factual basis for those attacks. They are talking points, not facts.

He appointed his devoted friend, Kari Lake, who ran for office in Arizona and lost both times, as the agent of VOA’s demise. She was an on-air commentator, so she knows something about media.

VOA seems to be in a death spiral, like USAID and the Department of Education.

The Washington Post reported on the Appeals Court’s ruling. Kari Lake described the decision as a “huge victory for President Trump.”

Trump has never explained why the Voice of America should be silenced.

Apparently no one at the VOA understands. I found this interview by Nick Schifrin of PBS (also on Trump’s chopping block), Lisa Curtis, and Michael Abramowitz, Director of VOA:

• Nick Schifrin: Lisa Curtis is the chair of the board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and a former senior director on President Trump’s first National Security Council staff.
• Lisa Curtis: While it’s understandable that President Trump wants to cut down on government waste and fraud, I think this is the wrong organization to be attacking. Russia, Iran, China, these countries are spending billions in their own propaganda, their own anti-American propaganda. So I think it’s critical that the U.S. government is supporting organizations like RFE/RL that are pushing back against that disinformation, misinformation.
• Nick Schifrin: And she says RFE/RL’s content reaches more than 10 percent of Iranians, many of whom have protested the regime.
• Lisa Curtis:So I think it really is part of U.S. soft power, but they actually call it the hard edge of soft power because it is so effective in getting out the truth about America, about what’s happening in their local environments. And this is absolutely critical.
• Nick Schifrin:Curtis said she considers the freeze and their funding illegal because the money is congressionally appropriated and RFE/RL’s mission is congressionally mandated. And they will sue the Trump administration to get it restored.To discuss this, I turn to Michael Abramowitz, who since last year has been the president of Voice of America and before that was the president of Freedom House.Michael Abramowitz, thanks very much. Welcome back to the “News Hour.”As you heard, President Trump in his statement on Friday night referred to VOA as a radical propaganda with a liberal bias. Is it?Michael Abramowitz, Director, Voice of America: I don’t think so.I do think that people at many different news organizations have been accused of bias on both right and left, like many different news organizations. VOA is not perfect, but we’re unusual among news organizations because we are one of the few news organizations that by law has to be fair and balanced.Every year, we look at each of our language services, review it for fairness, for balance. I have been a journalist in this field for a long time, and I think the journalists at VOA stand up very well against people from CNN, FOX, New York Times, et cetera, in terms of the commitment to balance.When we do talk shows, for instance, broadcasting into Iran, we will have Republicans, we will have Democrats. We are presenting the full spectrum of American political opinion, which is required by our charter.
• Nick Schifrin:You have heard from other administration officials or allies of the president. Ric Grenell, who is a special envoy, called it — quote — “a relic of the past. We don’t need government-paid media outlets.”
• Elon Musk says:“Shut them down. Nobody listens to them anymore.”Fundamentally, why do you believe taxpayers should pay for VOA journalism?
• Michael Abramowitz:You know, the media is changing, the world is changing, and the Cold War doesn’t exist anymore.But what is happening around the world is that there is a huge, really, battle over information. The world is awash in propaganda and lies, and our adversaries like Russia and China, Iran are really spreading narratives that directly undermine accurate views about America.And we have to fight back. And VOA in particular has been an incredible asset for fighting back by providing objective news and information in the languages, in 48 languages that people in the local markets we serve. No other news organization does that.
• Nick Schifrin:Let me ask a little bit about the status of the agency. You and every employee were put on leave over the weekend. Today, all contractors have been terminated. Do you have any notion of what the goal is from the administration? Is it to reform VOA, or is it simply to destroy it?
• Michael Abramowitz:Candidly, I don’t know.Ms. Kari Lake, who is supposed to be my successor at some point she’s given some interviews, and I think she clearly recognizes in those interviews that VOA serves an important purpose. I think there are a lot of Republicans, in particular, especially on the Hill, who recognize the value of Voice of America, who recognize that, if we shut down, for instance, our program on Iran, which is really an incredible newsroom — we have 100 journalists, most of whom speak Farsi, has a huge audience inside Iran.When the president of Iran, when his helicopter went down over the summer, there was a huge spike in traffic on the VOA Web site because the people of Iran knew that they could not get accurate information about what was going on, so they came to VOA to get it. That’s the kind of thing that we can do.
• Nick Schifrin:I want to point out, we heard from Lisa Curtis, the chair of the board of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.Voice of America and the Cuba Broadcasting, previously known as Radio Marti — we have got a graphic to show this — those are fully federal networks.(Crosstalk)
• Nick Schifrin:What RFE/RL is talking about, they are a grantee. They get a grant from the U.S. government. RFE/RL will sue. Does VOA have any recourse today?
• Michael Abramowitz:Well, I think we are — I mean, there’s a lot of discussion about some lawsuits that different parties are making. I know that the employees may be thinking about that.I think — I’m not sure that litigation in the end is going to be the most productive way. Maybe — I mean, you have to see what happens. But I think what would be really great is if Congress and the administration get together, recognize that this is a very important service, recognize that it’s sorely needed in a world in which our adversaries are spending billions of dollars, like Lisa said, and reformulate VOA to be effective for the modern age.
• Nick Schifrin:And, finally, how — what’s the impact of this decision and the language that we have heard from the Trump administration on the very idea that information, that journalism sponsored by the U.S. government can support freedom and democracy?
• Michael Abramowitz:We have been on the air essentially for 83 years through war, 9/11, government shutdown. VOA has kept — has kept its — has kept the lights on, has not been silent.So we’re silenced for the first time in 83 years. That’s devastating to me personally. It’s devastating to the staff. It’s devastating to all the thousands of people who used to work at VOA. I mean, this is a very special and unique news organization. It deserves to live. It doesn’t mean we can’t reform, but it deserves to survive.

I still don’t understand why Trump wants to close down America’s voice to the world.

I ask myself, who benefits if the Voice of America is stifled.

The obvious culprits: America’s enemies, especially Russia.

During the decades of the Cold War, VOA beamed information to dissenters behind the Iron Curtain. It kept hope alive.

No one would be happier to see VOA shut down than Putin.