CNN’s Jim Acosta Rebukes Trump in Defense of Free Press: ‘Not the Enemy of the People — We Are Defenders of the People’

CNN anchor Jim Acosta praised President Joe Biden for his farewell message and added a rebuke of President-elect Donald Trump as he defended and celebrated the free press on his show on Thursday.

Biden took to the Oval Office Wednesday night to deliver a farewell address to the nation in which he sounded the alarm about “a dangerous concentration of power,” and also lamented that “The free press is crumbling. Editors are disappearing. Social media is giving up on fact-checking. The truth is smothered by lies told for power and for profit.”

On Thursday’s edition of CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta, the anchor seconded Biden’s message — but added his own spin to it, and revealed a sign that was given to him by a viewer at the dawn of the first Trump administration:

Thank you all for joining me this morning. I want to take a moment to talk about something President Biden said during his farewell address.

He warned the free press is crumbling in this country. I would add that’s only if we, the people, let that happen.

Journalists exist to seek the truth, to tell people stories, to lift up voices that may not be heard otherwise, to shine a light on injustice, and to hold the powerful accountable. We are not the enemy of the people. We are the defenders of the people.

Walter Cronkite once said, “Freedom of the press is not just important to democracy, it is democracy.”

I want to take a moment to show you something. A woman sent me to sign eight years ago. She carried it here at a march in Washington. She wrote on the back of the sign, to me and the press here in D.C., “You have our support.”

To Nora, wherever you are, right back at you.

Reporting from Washington, I’m Jim Acosta.

Watch above via CNN Newsroom With Jim Acosta.