Tuesday was the end of an era with Jim Acosta’s 18 years at CNN coming to an end with the showboater choosing to avoid a demotion to weekdays at midnight Eastern and jumping ship with a cartoonish commentary about not “bow[ing] down to a dictator” and not “giv[ing] into the lies.” In the roughly minutes before that, Acosta was unapologetically partisan and went full Homer Simpson dropping a match on the bridge while driving away in a convertible.
Acosta’s doomsday talk came from the onset in the teases:
Power grab. President Trump’s administration is pausing all federal grants and loans, sending shock waves of confusion throughout the government. Programs that are possibly in jeopardy? Federal assistance for needy families. Plus Trump’s retribution. Dozens of officials who worked on criminal investigations that the president now fired and January 6th prosecutors are now being investigated themselves. And right now in Kansas, a potentially historic tuberculosis outbreak. This latest on the unprecedented public health risk.
After a lead-off report from correspondent Phil Mattingly about the spending pause, Acosta went to Congressman Mike Quigley (D-IL) on the same topic and fear-mongering about Head Start and grossly wishcasting school children would go hungry:
[I]f I can ask the control room to put that graphic back up on the screen that was showing some of these programs that might be impacted potentially, I believe we’re talking about Head Start, school breakfast and lunch programs. My goodness, congressman, these are programs for needy kids for hungry kids. We’re going to stop giving kids a breakfast. We’re going to stop giving kids a lunch when they need one? That sounds outrageous.
Acosta had also had Quigley weigh in on the raids to find and arrest illegal immigrants, ghoulishly dismissing the arrests of gang members and rapists “a dog and money show.”
Not to be left out, Acosta touched on the firing of Justice Department (DOJ) attorneys who participated in the Jack Smith probes as a “retribution campaign” and treated a call to change the Constitution to grant Trump a third term as serious.
Acosta spent a whole separate segment on the DOJ moves, telling CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig and Fusion GPS pal Evan Perez that “Trump’s retribution agenda” or “purge” was underway and Trump, not Biden, carried out a “weaponization” of government.
The nuttiest block was with purple-haired Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) where, on the spending pauses, he declared “say it ain’t so — well, it is so” and mocked voters for making the 2024 election about the economy as “smart people out there” when they’re actually getting policies that “tak[e] food off the table” (click “expand”):
Returning now to our top story, an overnight memo from the Trump administration ordering a sweeping pause on all federal grants and loans that could impact trillions of dollars in federal assistance for people in every state. Let’s bring in Democratic Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut. Congresswoman, great to see you. Thank you so much. I understand you’re the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. What is going on with these programs that are going to be impacted by this? We were looking at a graphic earlier that showed Head Start, breakfast and lunch programs for needy children. Say it ain’t so well, it is so.
(....)
Well, and you and Senator Patty Murray of Washington state wrote a letter to the White House saying, quote, we can put this on screen — “We write today to urge you in the strongest possible terms, to uphold the law and the Constitution and ensure all federal resources are delivered in accordance with the law.” And I guess you touched on this earlier, congresswoman, and for the folks at home, maybe help me explain this, when the Congress passes something, when they appropriate money to certain programs and that is signed into law by the President and yes, that may have been Joe Biden, now there’s a new president here. Another president can’t come in and just say, well, we’re throwing stuff out the window here. Wouldn’t you have to pass yet another law and have that law signed by the new President? If you want to get rid of head start and food stamps and all of those things, President Trump, you got to do this through the proper methods.
(....)
Well, and that’s what — I was told by all the smart people in Washington that this election was about putting food on the table, the price of groceries, the price of eggs and meat and potato type issues. This is talking about taking meat and potatoes from the kids. This is about taking food off the table.
Acosta only briefly dialed back to cheer a drop in consumer confidence on Trump’s watch before resuming the fear-porn with a block on tuberculosis in Kansas.
Prior to his snotty sign-off, Acosta used his final two segments to carry a snippet of a press conference from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and then a softball-filled interview with an illegal immigrant advocate and how it’s sad “there is a huge level of anxiety” “in the migrant community” that will “drive people into the shadows” and away from America as “a beacon of hope” (click “expand”):
President Trump is barely a week into his second term, and his administration has charged out of the gate on illegal immigration. In just the past two days, immigration officials say they have arrested 2000 people. Other federal agencies have joined in on the sweeping raids across the country, stoking fear and mistrust in the migrant community. And joining me now is Dylan Corbett. He is the founding director of the Hope Border Institute. That’s an advocacy group that helps migrants between El Paso, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. Dylan, thank you very much for joining us. Right now, I do want to ask you about how people are feeling right now in the migrant community. I have to think that there is a huge level of anxiety right now. People have to be scared, frankly.
(....)
And, Dylan, what does this mean for families with both documented and undocumented loved ones? People might be unaware of this, but there are many mixed status families in this country. What about them?
(....)
Yeah. I mean, we were talking about this with congressman Mike Quigley at the top of the hour. He’s in Chicago, and he was concerned about people not going to — kids not going to school because of fear, people not going to work because of fear and I suppose one of the unintended consequences or perhaps intended consequences of this is to drive people into the shadows.
(....)
And asylum seekers are arriving at the border and finding it essentially sealed. Are you concerned about the desperation of some of these asylum seekers, and what does it say about this country? Because, I mean, my father is a Cuban migrant on my mother’s side. You have people who immigrated to this country. This country has always been a beacon of hope through its immigration system, through immigration.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from January 28, click here.
