It was early March in 2007 when I received a phone call in the middle of the night. CNN’s bureau chief in New York at the time, Edith Chapin, called to deploy me to the Bronx on my first assignment as a CNN correspondent. A house fire had killed 8 children and one adult, in a four-story home shared by immigrant families. I still remember standing in the freezing cold for hours delivering one live shot after another on what was a horrific day for the borough. Mayor Bloomberg described it at the time as the city’s deadliest fire since 9/11.
For the next 18 years at CNN, my cell phone was always on, ready for the next call that might send me rushing out the door to an awaiting live camera. That was the adrenaline rush of 24-hour cable news. From my brief stint in New York to the next 16 years in Washington, I covered just about everything imaginable for the network, including five presidential elections and two starkly different administrations in the White House.
The highlight of my career came in March 2016, when I traveled to Cuba to cover President Obama’s historic trip to the island. During a press conference with dictator Raul Castro, I pressed Castro about his regime’s practice of jailing political prisoners. When I returned home, my father, a Cuban refugee, was beaming with pride. He was glad I asked the question. One of the lasting lessons I took from that moment was this: it’s never a good time to bow down to a tyrant.
In 2018, I became CNN’s Chief White House Correspondent, covering President Donald Trump, who had labeled both me and my network as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people.” I won’t delve too deeply into that period of my career now; let’s save that discussion for another time. Suffice it to say, I am proud of our work covering the first Trump administration, even as we faced death threats and relentless attacks from the President and his allies.
As I detailed in my book, The Enemy of the People: A Dangerous Time to Tell the Truth in America, one deranged Trump supporter posted a threat on Twitter that included an image of a severed goat’s head. I needed bodyguards to cover Trump’s rallies. Yes, I could have stepped away from the beat, but I chose to stay until the very end, reporting from the White House on January 6th and then on Air Force One on President Biden’s Inauguration Day, the same day Trump left office in disgrace.
The Trump administration and its MAGA allies made it their mission in life to run me out of town on a rail. From the suspension of my White House press pass to the relentless calls for my firing on Fox News, not to mention the continuing threat environment for me and my loved ones, it was a trying time in my life. But for me, there was always a greater purpose to the work.
Trump’s attempt to overthrow the 2020 election and the resulting attack on the Capitol on January 6th gave journalists the assignment of a lifetime: the state of American democracy. I believe it is a cause greater than oneself, as one of my personal heroes, the late Senator John McCain might say.
At the anchor desk, I made sure my program, “CNN Newsroom with Jim Acosta,” devoted as much airtime as possible to reporting on Trump’s assault on our elections and the destructive aftermath of his actions. Of course, we also covered the pandemic and other major news during this period, but we remained laser-focused on the democracy beat – relentless, like a pit bull on steroids. My team and I made a clear decision: the show would not pull any punches. How could we?
But after two decades of service, I am leaving CNN to start a new chapter, and I won’t pull any punches this time around, either. I owe that to myself and to you.
As I said during my sign off at the end of my final show on CNN…
Don’t give in to the lies.
Don’t give in to fear.
Hold on to the truth.
Hold on to hope.
In the meantime…
To President Trump and his allies, you may think you have silenced me. But guess again. “The Jim Acosta Show” is coming soon. Stay tuned by subscribing right here.
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