Jim Acosta accused the Trump administration of “cracking the code on how to hurt the press” by launching a new White House “Media Offender of the Week” website that publicly shames news outlets and feeds red meat to the president’s political base.
Speaking Saturday on MS NOW’s “Velshi” with host Charles F. Coleman Jr., the former CNN White House correspondent called the site worse than the press attacks he witnessed during Trump’s first term and suggested it may reflect the president’s “cognitive decline.”
The website, announced by Trump on Friday, currently singles out CBS News, The Boston Globe, and The Independent for allegedly misrepresenting Trump’s demand that members of Congress be held accountable for “inciting sedition” as a call for their execution. It claims the outlets falsely reported Trump wanted Sen. Mark Kelly and others executed after Kelly told service members they may refuse illegal orders.
Time for Media to 'Stand Up' Against Trump's Attacks - my thoughts on @MSNOWNews https://t.co/cjRKkRULz7
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 29, 2025
Acosta argued the page, combined with Trump’s recent settled lawsuits against media companies, is doing “terrible damage to the industry” and is deliberately timed as Trump’s approval ratings hover in the mid-30s. “The rest of the country has sort of written him off,” Acosta said.
He described Trump’s ongoing verbal attacks—especially those targeting female reporters—as intolerable in any normal workplace, saying any boss who spoke that way “would be fired at any company.”Acosta’s proposed remedy is “collective action” by the press to push back against both the website and Trump’s broader pattern of media hostility, which he believes has intensified since the first administration.