← The Jim Acosta Show
The Jim Acosta Show
HIGHLIGHT: Jim testifies before Congressional Field Hearing - with Norm Eisen
00:37:54
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- [00:00]
Jim Acosta
And I am in the city of Burbank. This is Burbank City Hall. I guess just to give you a flavor for what's happening here, in case you missed it earlier today, Senator Adam Schiff's office reached out earlier this week and said, you know, Jim, could you come out here and testify at this hearing that we're having on consolidating media in this country, what Trump has been doing with media in this country? Of course, I've talked about this so many times. Going after ABC and CBS with those ridiculous lawsuits and kicking the Associated Press out of the Oval Office, arresting journalists like our friend Don Lemon. Everything that we've been seeing, it might pale in comparison to what we're now seeing come down the pike, which is the rapid consolidation of MAGA media, MAGA controlled media in this country. The Ellisons, which recently, who recently bought cbs, are now making a bid to buy Warner Brothers Discovery, which is the parent company of CNN. They've already got a controlling stake in TikTok. And that's why you see this Trump social media post behind me, because Trump stupidly put it out there the other day. I mean, this is their vision of what they want to do to the media in this country. And one of the great folks out there who helped me through this hearing process is democracy warrior Norm Eisen. Of course, Norm fights these incredible legal battles on our behalf on so many different fronts. And you're also doing it when it comes to the media, too, Norm. And this, you know, I don't want to oversell this. I don't think you can oversell this. This is kind of the whole ball game if MAGA and Trump are allowed to create a propaganda empire in this country.
- [01:39]
Norm Eisen
That's right, Jim. And you testified so eloquently in Senator Schiff's hearing. Members of Congress were there. Congressman Correa. No, Wiley.
- [01:54]
Jim Acosta
That was great. Great. Noah Wiley was here. That was amazing.
- [01:58]
Norm Eisen
Jack Staluca, that leads the organization of documentarians who are fighting this takeover. Look, we've seen this movie before, the MAGA media monolith where the Ellison sees seized cnn. They broke it. They've got control of Tick Tock. And now they want to take after doing CBS and Tick Tock, they want to take CNN also. No, it's too much. They're going to get movies and TV shows. Paramount and Warner's merged. They're going to have that as a propaganda microphone. It's straight out of the Putin playbook. And, man, I watched that hearing, Jim. I got to watch my back as a congressional talker because you blew the hinges off. You called it out the way it is, a danger to free media and to American democracy.
- [03:00]
Senator Adam Schiff
Mr. Acosta, you're recognized for your statement.
- [03:02]
Jim Acosta
Thank you, Senator. And I'd like to thank Senator Adam Schiff, the members of Congress here today, the city of Burbank and their teams for inviting me to be a part of this spotlight hearing on the damage being done to our media in this country. And here is the breaking news. The news is broken. We may not be able to put the pieces back together again if the Paramount Warner Brothers Discovery merger goes through and puts my former home, cnn, under the control of the Ellison family. You see the President of the United States, Donald Trump, has cracked the code and how to hurt the press in America. You may recall Trump and his team seized my press pass during his first term. What is happening now goes way beyond that. As a former White House correspondent, an anchor for CNN and a former correspondent for CBS News, I can only report to you what I see with my own eyes. An assault on our freedom of speech and the free press in America by the most powerful man in the world who is taking us all down the road of Putin or China style and state dominated or state controlled media in this country owned by the oligarchs in service to Trump and maga, all in the name of special treatment for the wealthiest Americans at the expense of everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, the news does not belong to the oligarchs. It belongs to us. Take a look at this truth social post from Trump just last weekend under a banner that reads President Trump is reshaping the media. He boasts about defunding PBS and NPR as well as forcing anchors and hosts out of this nation's biggest TV networks. Trump brags he's gotten rid of the likes of Stephen Colbert, Lester Holt, Joy Reid, Chuck Todd, John Dickerson and Terry Moran. It's funny that Trump is taking responsibility for these moves here. I thought these were just, quote, programming decisions by the networks. Perhaps there is more to that story. And I should note there's even a mention of this reporter before you today. And while it is amusing to live rent free in the head of the President of the United States, I must tell you what's more disturbing is what is laid out in the rest of this Trump post, because it matters to all of us. In the next section, under the subheading reforms, there are references to some of the latest troubling media moves made by one of the richest families in the world, the Ellisons, who were Very close to Trump. And we can see that Truth Social post again. I can just point this out. One of the reforms listed reads Saved TikTok. Saved TikTok. A nod to the Ellison's taking control of that popular social media platform. But go further. Under that logo there are references to the ownership, the new ownership of CNN and a news bias ombudsman for cbs. The Ellisons, who have recently purchased Paramount, the parent company of cbs, are rapidly expanding their media empire by making what appears to be a successful bid to acquire Warner Brothers Discovery, which owns CNN. That would put CNN together with CBS and TikTok under the control or influence of one family that is closely aligned with the White House. Just go right down the row there, right down the line there. There you have it. Tic tac Doe. Or perhaps I should say tick tock Doe. The Trump administration, should it approve the Paramount WBD merger, and it looks like they will, would be setting the table for a MAGA friendly family to own an unprecedented amount of the news and information we consume in this country. That is not media consolidation, ladies and gentlemen, that is media domination. What's stopping that kind of media giant from gobbling up NBC or ABC next? This very real possibility, if realized, poses a danger to our democracy and the American dream. Just look at what has taken place at CBS since the Ellisons. You can lower that now. Sorry about that. Just look at what has taken place at CBS since the Ellisons installed Barry Weiss as the head of the once fabled Tiffany network. As I said, I used to work there. She is just this morning announced a crushing round of layoffs. The anchor she hired for the CBS Evening News closed one recent edition of that broadcast by saying, marco Rubio, we salute you. On another edition, he whitewashed the attack on the US Capitol on January 6 and claimed there were two sides to the story of that day. That's in addition to the disclosure that 60 Minutes had temporarily shelved a segment on the infamous Seekot prison in El Salvador that is used by the Trump administration to to lock up migrant detainees. Ladies and gentlemen, when 60 Minutes is in trouble, we're all in trouble. It is not a stretch to say we would likely see the same kinds of MAGA friendly editorial decisions should the Ellisons take control of cnn. That's exactly what the Trump administration wants. As one of my former colleagues at CNN just told me earlier this week, they're not worried about hitting the iceberg. They now see the iceberg and they're bracing for impact. Just last week, as the senator mentioned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth slammed a report from some of my former colleagues at CNN shedding light on the Iran war by saying this, and I quote, the sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better. Add to that what the FCC chairman Brendan Carr tweeted last weekend, threatening broadcasters they could lose their licenses over how they report on the war in Iran. Folks, they're saying the quiet part out loud. All of this is on top of the multimillion dollar settlements paid out by CBS and ABC to Trump in just the last year, that $15 million payment by ABC to Trump also got a mention in that true social post. And what did that accomplish? As we all remember, Trump's SEC attempted to silence Jimmy Kimmel. Anyway, in the case of cbs, executives handed over their extortion money to as the network was being pursued by Paramount, a sale that was pending at the time before the Trump administration. The public, folks, they can sniff out what's going on here. I talk about it every day on my podcast. These payments are part of a shakedown paid to a wannabe dictator who wants the government to determine who delivers the news. Add to that the recent arrests of Don Lemon, other journalists, the banning of the Associated Press from the Oval Office, the devastating layoffs at the Washington Post owned by Jeff Bezos, the nexstar Techna merger, the right wing propaganda peddled on X owned by Elon Musk, and don't forget the OG Trump state media outlet Fox News and their imitators Newsmax and oan. And if all of that sounds like hyperbole, consider this. The respected expert on authoritarianism, Ruth Ben Guy, recently told me, Trump is consolidating the media at a rate that is far ahead of where Vladimir Putin was during his early years in power in Russia. They aren't getting the real deal on what is happening in Ukraine. Imagine handing that kind of power to Donald Trump. When it comes to matters of war and peace in America. As is noted in his deranged yet revealing truth social post, Trump is yet, yes, winning his war on the media. That is because in part, the least courageous and most powerful members of the industry are allowing it to happen. Trump will keep going after the media because he wants the news to become lies. You can't speak truth to power, folks. If those in power can crush the truth. Go around the world. Go around the world and look at the countries that don't have a free press. They are not places where you want to live. Now, we can't go back in time and stiffen the spines of media executives. But we can stop this merger and the subjugation of CNN and other journalists in this country to the likes of the Ellisons and the oligarchs. Yes, Trump put me on his media hit list, but I'm proud to report to the president that I'm still here loving the freedom of independent media. I'm here today because I can freely speak to all of you. Now, as I said during my last broadcast on cnn, and I think it applies today, this is no 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 and hope. Thank you. It is a danger that. And this is the hearing room right here. You're looking at images of the hearing room, the city council room of Burbank, California, where we're just a stone's throw away from the WBD studios and the Paramount.
- [12:02]
Norm Eisen
You're camped out in that room. You're camping.
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Jim Acosta
We're taking it over. Hopefully they don't mind too much. We'll give it back. We promise we won't break anything.
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Norm Eisen
Jim is the new mayor of Burbank.
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Jim Acosta
Well, and it's, they, they try to run me out of town. I would think the industry did if I took over as the mayor of Burbank. But, but to me, Norm, I think this is extremely important. I mean, we saw, you know, Amazon, you know, make this Melania documentary the other day. Can you imagine if a combined Warner Brothers Paramount film studio starts putting out propaganda movies about Donald Trump and God and Pete Hegseth and God knows who? Well, where does it end? And I think there's. It's really possible. You could see, you could see CBS and CNN brought under one roof. Then they try to get NBC. Then they try to get a. I mean, we have to stop this in its tracks.
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Norm Eisen
It's not just the news. It's not just the news, Jim. Yeah, it's the entertainment there. Trump has already renamed the Kennedy center after himself.
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Jim Acosta
That's right.
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Norm Eisen
Next, the Trump Avengers. I mean, will he.
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Jim Acosta
He's getting all the stones, as they say in the movie.
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Norm Eisen
Will, will he be a part of the success, successful television shows also, you know, Trump's Dangerous Housewives. Where will it end, Jim? We can't. We can't have this media consolidation. Look at the other oligarchs. Putin did it. He rolled up the media down the block. Orban in Hungary, across the Canton continent, Erdogan in Turkey. It's standard operating procedure. Donald Trump understands. He wants to bring the government under his Heel. And he wants to bring independent media to boot. He's going after business enterprises. He's praised the Ellisons. Pete Edseth, you testified about this, Jim?
- [14:03]
Jim Acosta
I did.
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Norm Eisen
He said, I can't wait until the Ellisons are in control of cnn. Why? Because he doesn't want independent reporting on
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Senator Adam Schiff
the subject of editorial independence and the free press, which is under assault to a degree we have never seen this country. What's happening at cbs and what should it tell us about what will happen to CNN if the same management takes over that institution?
- [14:35]
Jim Acosta
Well, Senator, I mean, as I stated in my remarks and just this morning, the staff at CBS News received a note from Barry Weiss and the president of CBS News informing them of this massive round of layoffs which is going to really cripple that news organization. That same news division I worked for many years ago, the same news division of Walter Cronkite and Dan Rather and Edward R. Murrow. And it is now under the ownership of a family that is very closely aligned with Donald Trump. And so there are a couple of things that I think will happen. One is if this same family is allowed to own cnn, they will combine those two news organizations and we'll see another round of massive layoffs that will put journalists out of work. And not just the folks who are on the air. The photographers like the ones that we see here, producers who work behind the scenes, technical crews who put these shows on the air, bureaus that are located around the world. Look what Jeff Bezos has done with the Washington Post closing bureaus and offices and places around the world that are now very important to the news that we're getting today. And the other, I think, more disturbing aspect of this is that you basically have partisan hacks running CBS News. And they, as I said earlier in my comments, shelved a piece on 60 Minutes about the notorious Seacot prison. And we all remember those images of Secretary Kristi Noem standing in front of those cages filled with human beings. Some of them were migrants who were wrongfully detained by this administration and treated like animals. And 60 Minutes, I know some of the people who put that piece together. They were told that they couldn't air that story because they had to find administration officials to comment. Those administration officials are available to comment at any given moment and they eventually put that piece on the air. But imagine those kinds of editorial decisions Moving over to CNN, the nation's 24 hour news network. I mean, those kinds of editorial decisions will send a chilling effect throughout that news organization. And Senator, I don't have to explain to you what, what the effect of that might be. We'll get into the business of having of journalists self editing, self censoring programs saying, well, we better pull our punches here. We don't want to get in trouble with the bosses. We don't want to lose our jobs. And that affects the news and information that everybody receives today. And so, you know, there's a lot of talk of busting up big tech. I think we're going to have to start having the conversation about busting up big media because this is not America. What we're witnessing right now. This is very close to what is going on in Russia and Hungary and other authoritarian countries where they have successfully consolidated their news media. And it's the kind of news that the government wants you to hear and see. I tell the story all the time about my dad is a Cuban refugee. He came over to this country three weeks before the Cuban missile crisis and, and just, just a few years ago we were able to go back and visit Cuba. He'd always wanted to go back. And it was around the time of the death of Fidel Castro. And at that time the death of Fidel Castro was being reported by the Cuban state media as the physical disappearance of Fidel Castro. Not the death of Fidel, the physical disappearance. Do we want that kind of news in America? My dad didn't come to this country so this country could become like Cuba.
- [18:20]
Senator Adam Schiff
Thank you. And I'll note, although it's beyond the scope of this hearing, we saw the news today that nexstar has been approved for a merger which will consolidate local broadcasting well above the 39% mark to 60%. And that without really any public input, any analysis or anything more.
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Jim Acosta
And folks can just look to what's happening in Russia right now. It is state dominated media in Moscow. The Russian people, do you think they get the truth about what's happening in Ukraine and Russia? Forget about it doesn't happen there. And so that's what Trump wants here. Like the other day on Fox, you know that, you know, Trump wears a baseball cap to the dignified transfer at Dover. And everybody, there's a huge outcry over it. So Fox starts showing video from 2025 when he wasn't wearing the hat. You know, this is like, you know, Putin style, North Korean style state television. And we already have a fallen is
- [19:15]
Norm Eisen
like Stalin where he would airbrush out the people in the historic pictures when they went out of favor. In effect, Fox airbrushed the hat off of Trump in that sign of disrespect to our fallen warriors to wear a baseball cap.
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Jim Acosta
What's next?
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Norm Eisen
Is he going to go in his bathrobe like that, like that Mafia don did? Who was it?
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Jim Acosta
Was it the Sopranos or.
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Norm Eisen
Yeah, was it Vincent the Chin Gigante who went to court and shuffled around Little Italy in his bathroom gym to show, you know, is that what is next for Donald Trump?
- [20:00]
Jim Acosta
I mean, come on, it sounds. That sounds like life. It sounds like life inside the White House residence these days, and maybe the West Wing for that matter, where they've got the gold stuff everywhere. But, you know, but Norm, the serious side of this is, is that you can't have one family in charge of so much media. They've taken control of TikTok, they've taken control of CBS. Now they want to take control of CNN. And as you said, Pete Hegseth was saying at that briefing the other day that he didn't like a story that CNN was reporting about the Iran war and that he couldn't wait until the Ellisons took over.
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Unidentified Congressional Member
An investigative reporting is under attack, wanting. I think we are trying to snuff it out. So can you sort of share how potential mergers like this and what you're seeing so far, how this is making Americans less safe, if you think it is?
- [20:53]
Jim Acosta
No, I do. And I mean, I think, case in point, we just saw this. Was it last weekend, or maybe it was two weekends ago, when Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of those soldiers who came back who had lost their lives over in the Middle east and on Fox, on the Fox News program Fox and Friends that weekend, they. They carried it live. And as we all remember, because all of the networks were carrying it live. Donald Trump wore a baseball cap at the dignified transfer. The baseball cap said USA on it. A lot of military families thought that that was disrespectful, that he would wear a baseball cap to a dignified transfer. It was blowing up on social media. And then what did Fox do in later broadcasts as they were talking about what took place at that dignified transfer? They. They pulled video from their archives of a similar dignified transfer that had happened last year, and they were playing that instead and saying, here's Donald Trump at the dignified transfer. The reason why that occurred is because in the other video that they pulled from 2025, he wasn't wearing the baseball cap. It wasn't this offensive display that was seen live by people who happened to watch it at that moment. Imagine if all of the networks, or most of the networks in this country were under the umbrella of a MAGA friendly oligarchal family. And all we were watching was not the reality of what took place. I mean, I think that is just one example of the dangers that we're facing. And my concern is, is that we're going to see this continue, that this is just a sneak preview of coming attractions, to use movie parlance, and we're not going to be able to stop it. You know, this is the fcc. Just the other day, Brendan Carr tweeted, if the, if the news media doesn't report the things that are happening in the war the way we like it, they could lose their broadcast licenses. This has to be stopped.
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Unidentified Congressional Member
Is what's happening now from the Trump administration and their very outward attempt to go after news media that they feel is unfriendly to them. Is that something that is typical and normal? I think sometimes we hear from them that the legacy media has always done this, that they're somehow freeing them up. Is that your perspective? Is there anything normal about this?
- [23:17]
Jim Acosta
No, there's nothing normal about it. And to, you know, to borrow some, some medical terminology from our colleague Noah's show, I mean, the patient is on the operating table right now and is in critical condition. And my concern is, is that if we keep going down this road, it's, it's going to be lights out for the news in this country, for the truth in this country. Just this morning, Donald Trump was praising Brendan Carr, the chair of the fcc, for going after what he calls the fake news in this country. And I, I happen to be the reporter who he called fake news. He originally called me fake news back at a news conference in 2017. And then later, the enemy of the people. I wear those, those labels as a badge of honor. But folks, we are not going to be in a good place in this country if we turn the press, if we turn journalists in this country into the enemy of the people. As I like to tell folks, we are not the enemy of the people. We love the people, we want to tell their stories, just like the storytellers who are here today. We're defenders of the people. But folks who say, oh, this is because you're a liberal hack. That's why you're saying these things. This is not about Democrat or Republican. I don't think the problem today is left versus right. It's truth versus lies, and we cannot give into these lies. And my sense of it right now is that we are heading down a path that we're not going to be able to come back from. And that's why we need to have media options that are not controlled by the wealthiest and most powerful interests of this country. They need to be controlled by the people. They need to be led by the people. One of my favorite options there on the media diet is public broadcasting, PBS and npr. I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to my friends in public broadcasting. Donald Trump in that truth social post that I put up there, he celebrates defunding PBS and NPR in Washington. Senator Schiff's familiar with the station weta, which is the local PBS station. They only can afford to do a newscast, the PBS NewsHour five days a week. They had to cancel the weekend edition of the PBS NewsHour. How are people being served in a lot of far flung places around this country who might identify with Donald Trump and his politics when those kinds of options are being taken away? And so this is a full frontal assault on every type of media option that we have in this country. They are gobbling up the newspapers and the TV stations. The senator mentioned the nexstar techno deal, and they're going after the networks. And this is right out of Project 2025. And if we don't wake up, there's not going to be a project 2027 or 2029 for the rest of us. Look what he's doing with the elections in this country, sending the director of National Intelligence down to Fulton county and going after their ballots there and so on. And so this is it's not just an assault on the media or on journalists. It's on our democracy itself. Walter Cronkite, the legendary anchor of the CBS Evening News, he used to say that the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy
- [26:53]
Norm Eisen
and it can be stopped. And here is the good news. And I'm going to write my contrarian publisher's note, my weekly column on this. Here's the good news, Jim. The state AGs are looking at it. It is not only federal regulators. And in a normal administration where you didn't have the president and the secretary of defense and others with the Ellisons as their cronies, rushing this kind of thing through either administration, either party would put a stop to it. They would make divestitures. You have to split off cnn. It's too much power here. They're going to rubber stamp it. They just rubber stamp the nextar techno merger.
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Jim Acosta
But we haven't even talked about that. That's right.
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Norm Eisen
But. But there's. That was challenged in court by the state AGS. There's media reports that AG Bonton, CA and AG Tish James are working together to look at this. Paramount Warner's merger and it is not a done deal. Friends and Jim Acosta flying across the country. Brilliant testimony. I love this sneak peek.
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Jim Acosta
Yeah. Well, we can play a little bit for the viewers at home if you don't mind hanging in there a little bit longer. Let's, let's watch a little bit. I think we've got a clip.
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Norm Eisen
So good.
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Jim Acosta
All right, we'll show a clip that is the industry standard, that is the news magazine of record for the United States. It's so popular that Australia has its own version of 60 Minutes and so on. Imagine a, a Trump friendly MAGA friendly 60 Minutes from here on out. It's just wrong. And to see that kind of editorial decision making from the top down from that kind of, that kind of right wing hackery is not going to be good for anybody. And I would argue it does make us less safe. If the American people cannot see the costs of the war in the Middle east because it's being sanitized for people in this country, then, you know, how can we make the right decision when it comes to these kinds of matters of war and peace? No, I, I was speaking with a CNN insider earlier this week who said they're not worried about hitting the iceberg. They see the iceberg and they're bracing for impact. They don't want the people who are running CBS to come in and tell CNN this is how we want you to run your coverage of the war of Donald Trump. You know, you know, the other day the anchor of the CBS Evening News is saying, marco Rubio, we salute you. Can you imagine if they handed Anderson or one of the anchors at CNN and Wolf or somebody and said we need you to salute Marco Rubio at the end of one of your newscasts.
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Norm Eisen
And on your point of the nextar techno merger, remember, nextstar is one of those. They removed Jimmy Kimmel from their station, right?
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Jim Acosta
That's right. They were part of that.
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Norm Eisen
And we at Democracy Defenders Fund and Democracy Defenders Action, we sent a legal demand letter to Disney at that time and to ABC saying you can't knuckle under to try to suppress freedom of speech. And we were among those under legal threat, Jim. We had to speak out and warn them. And they relented and nexstar ultimately relented. But will they relent now that they're merged with Tegna? They have all these huge proportion of stations. That's why the AGs are fighting. And friends, one last word for you. Before I get the hook. One last word for you. The Paramount Warners or, or wbd, which includes CNN merger is not a done deal. The AGs are going to work on that. Just like they sued today. They're taking a look. They sued today on Next Art Techno. They are working on the Warner's Paramount merger and it's going to count on all of us to speak out to support them. This should be a national scandal. We're not going to let our country go down without a fight. We've been fighting and winning in hundreds of other cases, Jim. There's no reason we can't fight and win here.
- [31:33]
Jim Acosta
I love that hopeful message, Norm, and that's why we have to keep fighting. And you know, we talk about breaking up big tech in this country, we got to start talking about breaking up big media because it's going to make everything we consume cost more. We haven't even gotten into that. It'll make it more expensive and we don't want propaganda rammed down our throats. We're the American people. We're smart enough to sniff this out. We know what you're trying to do. Donald Trump and Brendan Carr, it ain't going to work. And we're just going to stand in the way and make sure it doesn't happen. And Norm, I know you're on the front lines of doing it and always appreciate what you do. Thank you very much.
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Norm Eisen
Well, thank you, Jim.
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Jim Acosta
The Attorney General in the Acosta administration, Norm Isaac.
- [32:14]
Norm Eisen
Does the mayor of Burbank have an attorney general? Maybe in a city it's like, I'll be the attorney specific.
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Jim Acosta
There you go. City attorney. City attorney. Well, maybe we'll set our heights a little higher, but we'll see. You know, you never know, Norm. You never know. Funnier things.
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Norm Eisen
Have a great weekend, Jim. Thanks for traveling out to California to sound the alarm and, and to rally us all to stand up for our nation. We appreciate you.
- [32:39]
Jim Acosta
You got it. Thank you, Norm. Really appreciate it. And as Norm mentioned, I, I am in California. I'm in sunny Cal. I think it's about 94 degrees outside. Right. I was hoping to maybe just have it a touch cooler if I came out to la, but I am California dreaming. It's so true. And I am. I'm dreaming of a day in this country where we do not have all of our media gobbled up by a bunch of MAGA oligarchs. In this country, we thought it was nutty when Elon Musk took over Twitter and turned it into X. And then it became a dumpster fire of right wing propaganda. And we thought, oh, surely it can't get worse than this. It's getting worse. It's getting worse by the day. Ladies and gentlemen, this Truth Social post that is over my shoulder behind me that I talked about at the hearing today, I mean, this is Donald Trump at the very top of this thing taking credit for ousting anchors and television hosts from their respective networks. He, he's taking, he's taking credit for getting rid of Stephen Colbert. He's taking credit for getting rid of Joy Reid and getting rid of myself and Terry Moran and Chuck Todd and others. And I was told, you know, this is what I was talking about at my hearing. I was told these were programming decisions by these networks, that it had nothing to do with Donald Trump. Sounds like what Donald Trump is saying is that he and his minions were able to put pressure on these companies to eject some of these anchors and hosts. And that's wrong. That's not who we are as a country. But what's far worse is what Trump is talking about doing to CNN and combining it with cbs. He wants to. And that's on the Truth Social post too. They want to put it all under the umbrella of one powerful MAGA oligarch family. Folks, this is not some ex Soviet bloc republic that we're, this is the United States of America. What are we doing here? We can't let that happen in this country. We're going to have a situation where all of these networks become like Fox News and they start running the old video of Trump without the baseball cap at Dover because that's what makes the Dear Leader look better. Hell no, we're not going to let that happen in this country. And so that's why when I was asked to do this, and yes, you know, as a journalist, you're not supposed to take sides, but I am going to take a side on this. We cannot have propaganda media in this country that is like something out of Putin's Russia or Viktor Orban's Hungary. That is wrong. It's not who we are as Americans in this country. And every once in a while I'll see the comments from people who say, but that is who we are now, Jim. That is who we are. We are the country of ice that kills people in the street without any accountability. We are this country that locks up little kids and put them and detention facilities like in Dilly in Texas. But my attitude is no, no, we're not that country. That only happens if we go down without a fight, if we go down without swinging. And so this old, tired, old news horse is going to keep at it. And maybe it is a little Don Quixote tilting at windmills, but my God, there is so much at stake. There is so much on the line. Do we want all of our movie companies making money? Movies like the Melania documentary? What is this, A Clockwork Orange? We're going to sit in the theater with the toothpicks in our goddamn eyelids making sure we watch the propaganda that's coming out of our screens. We got to stop this in its tracks. And that's why I came out to Burbank, to pound the table, to sound the alarm, to make sure people understand that this is not who we are as a country. And so when I say this is not who we are as a country, you can say in your comments, if you want, that, yes, it is who we are. But I'm not going along with it yet. I'm not there yet, folks. And so we're going to keep fighting this each and every day. My thanks to Norm Eisen. It's been a long, long day. Maybe I'll go have a margarita here and enjoy some California dreaming out here in Southern California. Always enjoy being out here. But in the meantime, I'm not reporting from Washington. I'm reporting from Burbank. I'm Jim Acosta, still reporting. I'll see you next time. Thanks for watching, Sam.