Kari Lake

Kari Lake Halperin (née Lake; KAIR-ee; born August 23, 1969) is an American political figure and former television news anchor serving as the senior advisor to the United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) since March 2025. She had operated as USAGM's deputy CEO and acting CEO from July 31 to November 19, 2025; her appointment and tenure were later ruled illegal by Judge Royce Lamberth, voiding all her actions purported to have taken as acting CEO. She is a member of the Republican Party. Lake began her media career in the early 1990s and was an anchor at Phoenix television station KSAZ-TV from 1999 to 2021, when she left to run for governor. In the 2022 Arizona gubernatorial election, she won the Republican nomination with the endorsement of Donald Trump, and promoted Trump's false claims of winning the 2020 presidential election during her campaign. She lost the general election to Katie Hobbs in one of the closest gubernatorial races that year. She did not concede and filed a lawsuit challenging the results; the case lasted nearly two years and was ultimately rejected by Arizona state courts. She later ran in the 2024 U.S. Senate election in Arizona, winning the Republican nomination, losing in the general election to Ruben Gallego. In December 2024, then President-elect Trump announced that he wanted Lake to be appointed as the next director of Voice of America, although the position is not legally appointed or nominated by the president. Lake was sworn in as a special advisor to the USAGM, which is the agency that oversees the Voice of America, on March 3, 2025. On May 11, 2026, Trump nominated Lake to be the U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica.