Back in 1981, actor Wallace Shawn—best known as Vizzini in The Princess Bride, blurting out the word “Inconceivable” multiple times—sat down with actor/director Andre Gregory for two hours to discuss life, spirituality and existentialism in a New York City restaurant setting. The resulting movie, overseen by director Louis Malle, was an arthouse film titled My Dinner With Andre.
Ranked among the most daring conceptual stunts in cinematic history by one film society, My Dinner With Andre was a small movie not even screened in many cities…but drew rave reviews from critics nationwide like Gene Siskel for depicting serious, compelling, intellectual one-on-one conversation between two men . No swordfights, no car crashes. Just the simplicity of two good friends enjoying dinner together while discussing serious issues.
President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order this week directing the dismantling of the federal agency which oversees The Voice Of America broadcasts reminded me of similar, intellectually stimulating dinners I have had with my good friend André Mendes…who served as CEO of the then-titled Broadcasting Board of Governors overseeing VOA in 2014 and 2015; André was also the organization’s Chief Information Officer and Chief Technology Officer from 2009 to 2018. He’s been on the inside at Voice of America, and knows how partisanship has substantially damaged what was once an honorable and utterly consequential U.S. diplomacy tool.
As I observed in my 2016 TOWNHALL column titled Housecleaning at the Voice of America, “…few taxpayers I know would approve of articles VOA distributed this Fall in Russian, Urkranian and other languages calling Donald J. Trump “a dog,” “a pig,” and other derogatory terms. And lavish waste and mismanagement continues to be of concern by those charged with Congressional oversight.” But my perspective was based on a newsman’s observations, not the personal, heartbreaking experiences André Mendes saw during his years at VOA, an agency he once revered.
André grew up in Portugal actually listening to the Voice of America…which fed his enthusiasm for freedom in the United States vs. the encroaching Communism in his home country, where he even suffered stab wounds from Leftists because of his pro-America ideology. He finally was able to legally emigrate to the USA in 1979 at age 17…alone and with only $300 to his name.
He managed to find his way to Washington where he personally met President Ronald Reagan and over the ensuing years André became the embodiment of the American Dream: a self-made patriot whose love of our country would put many native-born Americans to shame.
Over dinners in recent years, André has shared with me what can only be described as horror stories of waste, political bias and shoddy “journalism” within the ranks of Voice Of America staffers; he points out that the VOA website—far from portraying America as Ronald Reagan’s view of a Shining City on a Hill—instead features tendentious portrayals or slanted coverage of divisive subjects that split this nation in half such as “Covid vaccine mandates”, “Hunter’s laptop”, “Loudon County transgender assault”, or “Jussie Smollett”. One VOA video titled Who Pays The Price: The ripple effect of Trump’s tariiffs concludes with the biased question: “Will these tariffs bring jobs back, or just raise costs for consumers.” (More like the Voice of MSNBC than the Voice of America.)
Imagine the disappointment of a onetime kid on the streets of Portugal dreaming about coming to the United States in part because of pro-America broadcasts on VOA…ultimately to discover the agency has morphed into what Kari Lake portrayed as “a product that often parrots the talking-points of America’s adversaries.” In his words, “I am heartbroken …and very angry.”
He's not alone: a 2022 lawsuit claimed Voice of America has “been infiltrated by anti-American, pro-Islamic state interests, and that the message of VOA had been compromised in a manner that was biased toward the Islamic state factions in Iran.”
President Trump’s actions this week to corral the Voice of America’s obvious slant against our country drew immediate, predictable criticism from David Enrich in The New York Times, who noted that Voice of America’s charter was designed to protect its editorial independence from whichever administration is in power. He added that its mandate is to serve as a reliable source of news, to present “a balanced and comprehensive” portrait of America, and to “present the policies of the United States clearly and effectively.”
Clearly, referring to Donald Trump as a “dog” and a “pig” and highlighting alleged “racial hatred” like the now-discredited Jussie Smollett case in Chicago is not exactly putting America in a good light to listeners and viewers in other nations around the globe. VOA in recent years has evolved into just another biased, taxpayer-funded outlet like National Public Radio (but without the cool tote bags.) Hardly the “balanced and comprehensive” portrait of America suggested by the New York Times.
Despite his disappointment in the politically slanted broadcasts and documented financial mismanagement and waste within the agency he listened to as a teenager and later led as an executive within the VOA ecosystem, André Mendes remains optimistic that one day the Voice of America may be reborn…possibly under the direction of President Trump’s appointees Kari Lake and Brent Bozell.
And he makes them this offer: “I will be glad to tell you how amazing this agency once was and how amazing it could once again be. There are many fantastic people whose work there has been denigrated by partisan hacks, opportunists and just downright incompetence. But I would be remiss if I did not tell you that VOA can be—and is worthy of being—salvaged.”
If my own wonderful dinners with André are examples, Bozell and Lake would be wise to break bread with this man.
Tom Tradup is Vice President/News & Talk Programming at Dallas-based Salem Radio Network. He can be reached at ttradup@srnradio.com
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