'Don't give in': CNN host urges viewers to not 'bow down to a tyrant' in farewell message
By: Carl Gibson (Alternet. org)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
At the end of his show on Tuesday, CNN host Jim Acosta announced he was leaving the network. He used his farewell message to throw a jab at President Donald Trump without mentioning his name, and to urge viewers to take action.
Acosta said in the final minutes of his broadcast that he had given "careful consideration" to his decision, but that he had "decided to move on." He added that he was "grateful" to the network after a career spanning nearly 18 years, but that he would be declining a new role in which he would be moved to Los Angeles to broadcast at midnight Eastern Time. He then pivoted to asking viewers to defend the truth in the future.
"It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant," Acosta said following a segment about former Cuban leader Raul Castro. "I've always believed it's the job of the press to hold power to account. I've always done that at CNN and I plan on doing that in the future."
READ MORE: 'Kid gloves': CNN CEO urged reporters to go easy on Trump ahead of inauguration
"One final message: Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to truth. And to hope," he said. "Even if you have to get our your phone. Record that message: 'I will not give in to the lies. I will not give in to the fear.' Post it on your social media, so people can hear from you too."
Trump celebrated Acosta being sidelined on his Truth Social platform, calling it "really good news." He wrote that the longtime reporter and anchor (who was a frequent Trump critic) was "dishonest" and a "major sleazebag."
"Word is that he wants to QUIT, and that would be even better," Trump wrote. "Jim is a major loser who will fail no matter where he ends up. Good luck Jim!"
The Associated Press reported that Acosta — who was a former White House correspondent for the network — leaving CNN came in response to the network moving him to a late-night role rather than his weekly morning slot. Acosta's 10 AM morning slot will now be filled by hosts Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown. The move to put Acosta in a lower-rated slot was interpreted as a demotion, and came on the heels of the network's CEO, Mark Thompson, telling on-air talent to hold off on criticizing Trump ahead of his second inauguration.
READ MORE: 'We're showing you right now': CNN host busts GOP rep for evading questions on Trump pardons
Watch Acosta's farewell message below, or by clicking this link.
Quite a moment. Jim Acosta announces live on air that he is leaving CNN. Then he ends with this final message: "It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth." ( CNN)
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— News Eye (@newseye.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 12:20 PM
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"It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to the truth."
Looks like the CEO of CNN kissed the ring, too
I think they've finally acknowledged they have a huge reputation issue and they're trying to fix it.
Caitlyn Collins was on with Stephen Colbert a couple months ago and made a comment about CNN reporting being unbiased, and the crowd just burst out laughing. If you run CNN and you see a sympathetic audience openly laughing at one of your top anchors over bias, you know you have a problem.
Some of that fix is going to involve cleaning house, bringing in fresh faces and, most importantly, enforcing standards. If they're actually going to do that, fair play to them.
When was the last time we had a major journalist refer to the president of the United States as a tyrant ?
I trust you can see the major flaw in your argument. ,
Nope, not a chance. At least not that he’ll admit here.
There is no flaw in my argument.
Acosta is not a major or accredited "journalist" but a whiny and disgraced political hack, just like Don Lemon was. Good riddance.
Acosta made a name for himself trying to make everything more about him than what he was covering. He probably thought he would be back in the spotlight after Trump won. Even CNN had had enough of him and decided to give him an offer he could refuse.
I dunno. What time is it?
LOL! Glad I saw this before I posted. Hate duplicating someone else's post.
Why have the institutions of democracy given so much autocratic power to the Presidency? Trump can only act as a tyrant because the Office of the President has been given more power than the Constitution allows. Seems like democracy has been exploited by political players for their own benefit. So, now it's voters fault?
Jim Acosta is just another elitist asshole who has weakened an institution of democracy (the press) to obtain fame, influence, and money. Acosta shares in the responsibility for creating an imperial Presidency. Now Acosta whines because what he has done is biting him on the ass? Too bad, so sad, get lost wanker.
You are something else. Now Trump is being forced by the media to be the biggest asshole in American history? ROFL.
What an imagination. If the Office of President hadn't been given more power than the Constitution allows then it wouldn't matter if Trump was the biggest asshole in the history of this galaxy.
What I'm saying is the figgin' liberals have empowered and enabled Trump by giving the Presidency imperial power because Congress spends its time playing grab ass and not doing anything. Congress has to have a freakin' special counsel because Congress is helpless and powerless.
C'mon, man. (Where have we heard that before?)
The real tyrant just left the presidency.
But he was the left's tyrant, so that makes it OK.
they didn't give it to him, he took it. You did hear about all the IGs that were fired, didn't you?
You mean the 4th branch of government that's never mentioned in the Constitution? Those IGs were there to cover Congressional backside, nothing more.
So, why does the executive branch need so many watchdogs? How many of those IGs were keeping an eye on Congress?
We've got an evil tyrant running the executive branch and no one can stop him. We've got a SCOTUS that's corrupt and self serving. But thankfully we have a Congress that's made up of helpless saints and martyrs who have no authority, power, or desire to do anything.
Do you understand the 'states rights' argument now?
The tyrant couldn't make it through one week without violating the law on at least four occasions:
We all know why the tyrant hates IGs, don't we?
In addition to outright violations, the tyrant also pardoned traitors who attacked the Capitol on his behalf (!!!), and had his sitting Atty Gen fire people at DOJ who worked on his indictments (convenient for Pam Bondi). To top it all off, a House Republican actually introduced a resolution to give the tyrant a third term.
And it's only going to get worse. Can the Republic survive four years of a tyrant unleashed?
It's only been 8 days... there's plenty more lawlessness to come.
TikTok is NOT available for update and new download. So companies are complying with the law. There is nothing in the law that states TikTok has to shut down as without updates it will just simply not work anymore. The Emperor's decree does little to nothing except generate some clickbait online.
The other 3 you posted have and will end up in court. IGs when to work this week like normal, a federal judge blocked Trump admin from violating citizenship rights and court challenges to halting federal spending are being filed today.
It depends on the number of people who stand up and oppose him. He's had a robust first week with positive approval ratings, but as the consequences of his actions start affecting the lives of the voters, that will change.
The latest Trump unforced error is that he just fired the head of the NLRB.
I saw that. I also just read that defense contractors are all confused and worried about directives on defense spending. No one seems to know what's going on. At least one contractor has completely stopped all work until further notice.
EDIT: There was an email this morning that that came at the direction of the Secretary of the Army's office to immediately hold on awarding all contract or OTAs, all solicits and requests for information, any funding association related to grants and any Congressional notifications.
It did not come as an official memo which is why everyone is confused.
The Medicaid sites are down in all 50 states.
I saw a headline for Medicaid in Illinois, but I had to stop doom scrolling so I didn't read it.
EDIT: The WH said the Medicaid payment portal is supposed to go back up, but I'll believe it when I see it. If they told me it was Tuesday I'd double check a calendar.
Given this is likely to be temporary, it is a good thing that the Medicaid sites are down. This will bring those who voted for Trump a little dose of reality (because some of them are certainly on Medicaid and other federal systems) and maybe now they will start paying attention.
He better get a bigger Secret Service force if he wants to make it through.
Where were you when Brandon repeatedly violated federal laws.
As for the IG's- fuck them. They disappeared during Brandon's reign of terror. Time to get some that will actually do their damn jobs for a change.
We already survived 4 years of Trump; and 4 years of Brandon who is guilty of everything the left loves to accuse Trump of.
We heard this BS 4 years ago; so pardon if we roll our eyes and laugh at leftist over reaction and delusion.
One of these days you should probably sit yourself down, take a deep breath, and try to figure out why you believe so much shit that isn't true.
The reason so many are here on asylum claims is precisely because they were following the law. Presidents are supposed to enforce the law, not write it. Congress is responsible for writing law, and when they finally managed to produce something with meaningful change, Trump had it killed because he wanted the immigration issue to run on. So spare us the misplaced outrage.
Nobody weaponized anything against Trump. Nobody had too. He brought it all on himself, which should be FUCKING OBVIOUS. The job of DOJ is to prosecute federal offenses, and that's exactly what they tried to do. Garland's apparent concern over appearances of bias are probably why things dragged on for so long, allowing Trump to ultimately get off, which is the only real tragedy here. The traitor should be in prison right now, not back in the Oval Office.
On the 2020 George Floyd stuff... Records rebut claims of unequal treatment of Jan. 6 rioters
And if you honestly think Biden mishandled documents in a "far more serious" way than Trump, then you can just fuck right off, because that's insane. Trump knowingly stole entire boxes of sensitive information, refused multiple requests to return it, and reportedly showed some of it to guests.
Total bullshit... VA disputes GOP claim that money for vets is going to migrants instead
Summary of the legal authorizations used: U.S. Security Cooperation with Ukraine
Trump hates IGs because he's the most corrupt president in history and their job is to call out fraud, waste, and abuse. He had to get rid of the ones he figured were going to be a problem for him, like at DOD with Hegseth now at the helm. Replacements he puts in place will just be toadies.
Seriously, climb out of that rabbit hole you've gone down.
Remind me again...who was POTUS in 2020 during the so-called Summer of Love?
That would be the tyrant himself, busy mishandling Covid and complaining about too much testing showing too many cases.
I thought so but your "debate" partner up there seems to think it was Biden
Trump's DOJ did most of the prosecutorial work in the fall of 2020, so yeah, kind of stupid to bring Biden into it.
Only to have the Biden DOJ intervene and back out of plea agreements to actually reduce sentences for molotov cocktail throwing terrorists like Colinford Mattis and Urooj Rahman.
I don't know all the details about that, but after some searching it looks like there was controversy over the initial terrorism enhancement, and something about a bunch of former federal prosecutors filing a brief criticizing the handling of their cases. They were still disbarred, served some time, and had to pay over $30,000 each in restitution for the destroyed vehicle. It's not like they got off scot-free, and they certainly didn't receive presidential pardons, unlike some other "terrorists" we could talk about.
Thanks to Biden DOJ stepping in and reducing the agreed sentence, for firebombing a police car they received the same sentence as a Jan 6th trespasser who in the words of the sentencing Judge was "neither violent nor destructive." If I looked more, I'm sure others who were neither violent nor destructive received even harsher sentences.
That's indefensible.
Link me to the Jan 6 sentence you're referring to.
passive, quiet and nonviolent conduct resulted in a one year sentence.
Ok, we're talking about Russell Dean Alford. He received one year on four misdemeanor counts, and was allowed to serve the sentences concurrently and not consecutively, otherwise it would have been more. A search result said he was also fined a total of $570 in fees and restitution, but the page at DOJ the result linked to seems to have been taken down.
And he wasn't just trespassing, he was part of the crowd that attacked the Capitol while Congress was there to certify the election – "his unauthorized presence in the Capitol as part of an unruly mob contributed to the disruption of the Congress’s electoral certification and jeopardized public safety.”
Even if non-violent, he willfully participated in the disruption of a Constitutionally-mandated government function. He was lucky he wasn't charged with felony obstruction like others were.
You said he received the same sentence as the two lawyers. They were barred from their professions, fined $30,000 each, and received more time (albeit only a day more in the case of Mattis, who wasn't the one who actually threw the Molotov cocktail into the police vehicle).
Granted, the sentence lengths are similar, but Alford's was technically less, by one day for Mattis and by three months for Rahman (who also received two years of supervised release, as opposed to one for Alford and Mattis). The fines are nowhere near the same.
Not exactly the big deal you were making it out to be. The lawyers destroyed an empty police vehicle on a mostly empty side street and were punished for it. Alford trespassed as part of an attempt to subvert the electoral certification and was punished for it. What's the problem?
IMO, being part of a coup attempt is the greater crime, and not by a little. Looks to me like he got off easy.
He walked around. Biden's DOJ intervened to help terrorists who threw a molotov cocktail at police and destroyed a squad car.
e, and not by a little. Looks to me like he got off easy.
I'm not in the least surprised that a progressive believes a non-violent protest by a Trump supporter is significantly worse than a leftist terrorist hurling a molotov cocktail at a police car during a protest. That sort of thinking explains why Trump is President.
AS I SAID – the lawyers (not terrorists) destroyed a police vehicle and were punished for it (including paying restitution for the vehicle), and Alford willfully entered the Capitol as part of an attack on Congress and was punished for it. None of them said to themselves, "This is wrong, I'm not doing this."
The only miscarriage of justice here is that Trump pardoned the traitors who were still serving time.
Sorry if your brain can't process that.
Sean is not the one with a “processing” issue.
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And can you imagine someone calling Biden "Brandon"? Infantile comment.
“The trial evidence indicated that, during Alford’s brief time within the Capitol, he was neither violent nor destructive,” D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in a Friday filing. “Nevertheless, we affirm his convictions because a jury could rationally find that his unauthorized presence in the Capitol as part of an unruly mob contributed to the disruption of the Congress’s electoral certification and jeopardized public safety.”
So, Mr. Alford was inside the capital after it had been breached.
I wonder what the conservatives would think of a man, Mr. A, who didn't break any windows or throw any stones but he's with a group of acquaintances who are vandalizing and attacking officers, and they break the windows of a retail store and Mr. A follows his group into the retail store where more vandalism and theft occurs. Then as Mr. A walks out of the broken front windows he gets arrested even though he informs officers he had not vandalized anything nor stolen anything.
Now how many conservatives here would be standing up and saying "Hey, that guy shouldn't have been found guilty of anything! He didn't break into that store or steal anything! Why is he getting sentenced to a year in jail?".
Everyone here knows that conservatives would be saying that guy totally deserved what he got, he shouldn't be hanging out with that kind of crowd if he didn't want to get arrested and of course he'd be arrested if he entered private property even if he wasn't one of the ones who broke the windows.
They claim to be anti-crime until they're the ones caught committing the crimes.
Weak sauce, very weak sauce …..