Jim Acosta, former senior White House correspondent for CNN, spent President Donald Trump’s first term making himself the story. An ultimate example of this behavior was when he lectured Stephen Miller on Trump’s call for immigrants to learn English.
“The Statue of Liberty says, ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. It doesn’t say anything about speaking English,” Acosta piously said in what was supposed to be a question in 2017. “This whole notion of, ‘Well, they have to learn English before they get to the United States’ — are we just going to bring in people from Great Britain and Australia?”
Miller responded thusly:
“I am shocked at your statement that you think only people from Great Britain and Australia would know English,” Miller retorted. “It reveals your cosmopolitan bias to a shocking degree. This is an amazing moment — that you think only people from Great Britain or Australia would speak English is so insulting to millions of hardworking immigrants who do speak English from all over the world. That is one of the most outrageous, insulting, ignorant, and foolish things you have ever said.”
Good for Miller. And he’s right: 125 million people speak English in India alone. Acosta would later go on CNN that night to make himself the victim for asking a ridiculous question.
Eight years later, he was basically shown the door by CNN after being offered to anchor the graveyard shift to the smallest audience possible. Acosta declined and was out at the network, but not before (again) having another look-at-me moment before signing off.
“People often ask me if the highlight of my career at CNN was at the White House covering Donald Trump,” he said during his last broadcast. “Actually, no. That moment came when I covered President Obama’s trip to Cuba in 2016 and had the chance to question the dictator there, Raul Castro, about the island’s political prisoners. As the son of a Cuban refugee, I took home the lesson: it is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant. I have always believed it’s the job of the press to hold power to account. I’ve always tried to do that at CNN and plan to go on doing it in the future.”
The tyrant in Acosta’s mind, of course, is Trump. As for holding the powerful to account, it’s worth noting Acosta couldn’t leave his position of White House correspondent fast enough after Biden’s victory in 2020 because that would mean holding a Democrat administration accountable and that simply was not going to happen.
Since leaving CNN, Acosta has launched a podcast that involves only interviewing Democrats. It couldn’t be any more tedious since the conversation is two people agreeing with each other the entire time.
With barely anyone watching these online interviews (his last one on Thursday generated a whopping 5,700 viewers on his YouTube channel), the host decided to do the unthinkable: Interview an AI-generated avatar of a dead teenager, Joaquin Oliver, who was murdered during that horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018 that left 17 dead.
“A show you don’t want to miss at 4p ET / 1p PT. I’ll be having a one of a kind interview with Joaquin Oliver. He died in the Parkland school shooting in 2018. But his parents have created an AI version of their son to deliver a powerful message on gun violence,” a shameless Acosta posted on X while turning replies off.
It is ironic: A leading purveyor of fake news interviewing a fake person to draw attention to himself.
“I would like to know what your solution would be for gun violence,” Acosta asked AI Joaquin at one point.
“Great question. I believe in a mix of stronger gun control laws, mental health support, and community engagement. We need to create safe spaces for conversations and connections, making sure everyone feels seen and heard,” the avatar responded. “It’s about building a culture of kindness and understanding. What do you think about that?”
“I think that’s a great idea, Joaquin,” Acosta responded while acting as if this were an interview with an actual person.
It can’t be underscored enough just how sick and unethical this is. For starters, we have zero idea what Joaquin’s views were on gun control or if he had an opinion on the matter at all. In this case, the AI version was obviously pre-programmed to agree with Acosta on gun control.
With no boss or advertisers to answer to, Acosta got away with this. But it’s hard to see how he’s not going to lose subscribers over this. And since this drew attention, thought mostly negative, Acosta will likely do something this again to satisfy his constant need for attention.
So who’s next? AI Nicole Brown Simpson to answer questions about O.J.?
What is so telling in 2025 is how much those who claimed to be serious, objective journalists have completely exposed themselves for who they’ve been all along: Lefty activists with a microphone.
In the past few months alone, we’ve heard ex-ABC White House correspondent Terry Moran argue that it’s “not reporter’s job to be objective” while calling Trump’s immigration policy “a terror campaign.”
Chuck Todd, the former moderator of NBC’s Meet The Press, said the press were mere victims of the attempted cover-up of Joe Biden’s cognitive health and bore no responsibility for taking part in the cover-up “because they were lied to.”
Don Lemon, another ex-CNNer, argued that “no rational Black person” could support Trump (after Trump got the highest share of the Black vote in more than 50 years in 2024), while ex-MSNBCer Joy Reid has compared Trump’s immigration centers to “concentration camps” designed to round up “brown people.”
Jim Acosta interviewed a dead teenager this week. He says he has zero regrets.
JIM ACOSTA’S INTERVIEW OF A DEAD KID IS A SHAMELESS STUNT
And therein lies the rub of “journalism” without the guardrails of an editor or authority.
Because no sane person would ever greenlight such an obvious, and pathetic, publicity stunt.