Sen. Lee Seeks to Revive 1948 Law Against Domestic ‘Propaganda’ Repealed in 2013

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, is calling on Congress to pass the Charlie Kirk Act, which would restrict the broadcasting of federally funded programming intended for foreign audiences within America’s borders.

The Utah senator posted on the social media platform X on Sunday, declaring, “Domestic, political, government-funded propaganda must end now,” and explaining that he would be reintroducing legislation intended to restore the original Smith-Mundt Act, renamed in honor of Charlie Kirk, the conservative leader who was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10. 

Kirk’s slaying—and legacy—have become the subject of public debate with misleading or outright false claims made about the Turning Point USA founder circulating on X and other social media platforms.

The Smith-Mundt Act referenced in the Utah senator’s post was also known as the U.S. Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948. For more than six decades prior to 2013, it prohibited the dissemination of material intended for foreign audiences to the domestic population of the United States from certain U.S. government-funded media organizations.

That prohibition was repealed in the National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2013. That allowed what critics described as U.S. government-funded propaganda to be broadcast within America’s borders. One of the justifications for the legislative change was the reputed need to combat al-Qaida propaganda targeting those living in the United States.

The dissemination of pro-U.S. broadcast programming to foreign audiences is typically overseen by the State Department and the Broadcasting Board of Governors. The Broadcasting Board of Governors, now known as the United States Agency for Global Media, encompasses several media networks that broadcast abroad, including Voice of America, Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Office of Cuba Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Middle East Broadcasting Networks, and the Open Technology Fund. 

Opposition to taxpayer-funded pro-America news and information being shown domestically has existed in Congress for some time. Then-Sen. Edward Zorinsky, D-Neb., said in 1985 that preventing the dissemination of United States Information Agency “propaganda” differentiated the United States from the then-Soviet Union, where propagandizing the domestic populace was a pervasive practice of the government.

Lee’s proposed legislation comes at a time when the Trump administration is seeking to reform the federal government, as Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained, to “advance our national interest.” That has involved significantly trimming the federal bureaucracy and government programs through efforts like the Department of Government Efficiency. President Donald Trump himself called in the past for the end of federal funding of NPR and PBS as a result of their perceived left-wing bias. Congress recently followed through on that request by rescinding billions of dollars from a variety of government programs, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS. 

Trump has also publicly backed the effort to restore Smith-Mundt by sharing on Saturday a social media post urging him to sign legislation restoring the Smith-Mundt Act in some form and naming the law that did so after Charlie Kirk.

The Daily Signal has reached out to Lee’s office for comment.

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