Former CNN host Jim Acosta voiced [1] concerns Friday after Paramount prevailed in a bidding war for Warner Bros. Discovery, the parent company of CNN.
According to CNBC, Netflix ended its effort to acquire the media conglomerate on Thursday after a higher bid from Paramount Skydance. The deal places CNN under the same corporate umbrella as CBS News, which is owned by Paramount.
Acosta addressed the development during an episode of “The Jim Acosta Show,” suggesting the new ownership structure could be more favorable to President Donald Trump. He also raised the possibility that CNN senior political commentator and Republican strategist Scott Jennings could receive his own program.
“[W]e may have a scenario in this country where a MAGA-friendly corporation, a Trumpy corporation, Oracle, will control both CBS News and CNN,” Acosta said. “In what world is that normal? How is that happening in America? … I can understand it happening in Russia … Hungary … Turkey … Visit the countries that have state-controlled media … These are not places where you want to live, by and large … These are places you don’t even want to step foot on their soil.”
He continued by comparing the potential consolidation to media systems in other countries.
“Do we want the United States of America to become like Russia? … North Korea?” he said.
“Do we want the United States of America to become like China, where you don’t have freedom of thought … political freedom … the ability to read, watch, and absorb the media and information that you want to consume and take in?”
Paramount’s chief executive officer is David Ellison, the son of Oracle founder and Trump fundraiser Larry Ellison.
Paramount also owns CBS News, which appointed The Free Press founder Bari Weiss as CBS News editor-in-chief in October.
Acosta questioned what editorial direction could look like under a combined CBS and CNN structure.
“Do we want to have a situation where you have a giant merger of CBS and CNN pumping out propaganda every day, saying how great Donald Trump is, how great his poll numbers are?” he asked. “I mean, if that’s what we’re going to see from this monstrosity of a combined CBS and CNN under the leadership — if you want to call it that — of Bari Weiss, is that what they’re going to pump out over the airwaves? Is that what they’re going to pump out over CNN?”
He continued by referencing remarks he attributed to President Trump and recent broadcasts.
“That Donald Trump is the second coming of Abraham Lincoln, or as he likes to put it out on the campaign trail, that he’s more popular, that he’s a greater president than Abraham Lincoln and George Washington? What a crock of shit,” Acosta said. “And do we want that crock of shit going out over the airwaves of CBS News on a daily basis, where the anchor of the CBS Evening News recently ended his broadcast and said, ‘We salute you, Marco Rubio’?”
Acosta also speculated about potential programming changes involving Scott Jennings, suggesting he could anchor either the CBS Evening News or “Anderson Cooper 360.”
“I mean, what kind of crazy ‘Stranger Things’ upside-down world are we going to become if that’s the kind of news and information that we have pumping out over the airwaves in this country? It sounds to me that that’s exactly what Donald Trump wants,” Acosta said. “All you have to do is go inside his twisted mind.”
He continued, referencing recent social media posts by President Trump.
“I mean, just the other day, he was tweeting about sending a hospital boat to Greenland. He can’t even stay awake at his own events,” Acosta said. “And this is the guy who’s going to cow these giant media properties into combining into one another and becoming propaganda arms of his administration. I mean, what kind of crazy 1984 shit is this?”
Concerns about the transaction were also reported within CNN. CNN senior media analyst Brian Stelter wrote Friday that employees at the network “have real concerns” about the company’s future following Paramount’s successful bid.
The acquisition marks a significant shift in ownership for CNN and aligns it with CBS News under Paramount’s leadership, prompting debate among media figures about the potential implications for coverage and editorial direction.