Kari Lake, the embattled Trump administration official tasked with dismantling the government’s global media outlets, has been nominated as the next U.S. ambassador to Jamaica, according to a list of nominations the White House sent to the U.S. Senate on Monday.
Lake, the Arizona Republican who unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate and governor in that state, joined President Donald Trump’s second administration as the top official in charge of the U.S. Agency for Global Media. The little-known government agency oversees Voice of America, founded in 1942 to produce independent news to combat Nazi propaganda.
But Lake never was able to run the agency: Instead, she was instructed to tear it down.
After Trump issued a March 2025 executive order that USAGM would be shrunk to its “minimum presence and function required by law,” Lake laid off the agency’s contractors and put its full-time staff members on administrative leave. Hundreds of them are being paid but not working more than a year later.
Former staffers from Voice of America, including director Michael Abramowitz, sued Lake in federal court in March 2025, arguing that her actions were illegal. For more than a year, Lake sparred with a federal judge overseeing the legal cases against her, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth, a Ronald Reagan appointee who threatened to hold her in contempt of court.
Lamberth ruled in March that Lake had been illegally running USAGM because she was never nominated by Trump to be the agency’s CEO and thus didn’t have proper authority. She had, at times, called herself senior adviser, acting CEO and deputy CEO of the agency.
The judge also found that Lake’s shutdown plan, written to carry out Trump’s executive order, violated federal administrative law and could not stand. That decision could pave the way for USAGM’s staffers to return to work. In late March, a federal appeals court stayed a plan to immediately bring them back.
“Thank you to President Trump for nominating me to serve as the next U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica,” Lake wrote in a post on X. “Jamaica is a country I know very well, full of incredible people, and if confirmed by the Senate, I look forward to strengthening the partnership between our nations, advancing America’s interests abroad, and building on the deep friendship shared by the American and Jamaican people. Honored to continue serving in this HISTORIC Administration!”
Lake did not respond immediately to a question about whether she would depart USAGM before Senate confirmation.
“Kari Lake will make an incredible ambassador to the great country of Jamaica, and the White House looks forward to her swift confirmation,” said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman.
Lake, a former television anchor in Arizona, gained national prominence in her two unsuccessful campaigns for office. She closely aligned herself with Trump and his MAGA movement, and has consistently denied the results of various elections, including the 2020 presidential contest. Her role at USAGM was her first major political post after years of campaigning.
Following Lamberth’s ruling, Trump nominated State Department official Sarah B. Rogers to serve as USAGM’s CEO, and tapped another State official, Michael Rigas, as acting CEO. Rogers, the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, plans to serve concurrently in both roles if confirmed.
Before Trump’s inauguration, Lake was rumored as a possible U.S. ambassador to Mexico, but that job ultimately went to Ronald D. Johnson, who was ambassador to El Salvador during Trump’s first term. The United States has not had a permanent ambassador to Jamaica since the Biden administration, though it has a chargé d’affaires.
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