Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta fired back at Greg Gutfeld on Thursday, sarcastically thanking him for the “plug” of his new Substack show after the Fox News star repeatedly ridiculed Acosta in a lengthy on-air segment on Wednesday night.
“Hey thanks for the plug @Gutfeldfox on your program,” Acosta tweeted before comparing Fox News’ resident “comedian” to primetime host and Trump confidant Sean Hannity while suggesting Gutfeld is unable to criticize President Donald Trump or DOGE chief Elon Musk.
“You’re as bad as Hannity,” he added. “Don’t you guys have anything else to cover? That’s right. You can’t say anything critical of Trump or Musk! Sad! Hear my response later today on the show.”
During his Fox News program the night before, Gutfeld mockingly covered the first few broadcasts of Acosta’s online show, explicitly taking aim at the low-budget feel and technical mishaps that the former CNN host has encountered in his early interviews.
“I think this show is sponsored by Windows 97,” Gutfeld snarked before joking about Acosta saying that his show is “real and unvarnished” and thus gives him the opportunity to “bro out” with his guests.
“Bro out, yes. I can’t wait to see him and Tim Walz bobbing for tampons,” the right-wing host quipped, referencing Trump supporters’ relentless culture war attacks on the Minnesota governor.
Scoffing at Acosta for exhibiting “self-righteous power,” Gutfeld aired a clip of the veteran journalist — and longtime target of Trump and his allies — stating that it is “incumbent on us…to insist on the truth” while referencing the number of subscribers who have left him comments to that effect.
“All the people watching and all the people leaving comments! What, three people?! You, and maybe two members of your family?! I hate to tell you, Jim, the only people watching are people like me who need content to make fun of you, and even this is a stretch because this is not even good bad — it is boring bad,” the Fox host sneered.
“And all those other measurable hacks in the media thinking this is a path to success beyond cable, hate to break it to you. Just because you have a name does not mean you have a following,” Gutfeld, who regularly features podcasters and Substackers on his show, added. “Nobody said, ‘Hurry up honey, Jim Acosta is on!’”
While Gutfeld spent roughly eight minutes on Wednesday night heaping scorn on Acosta for supposedly not having an audience after departing CNN last week, the former White House correspondent had already accumulated 116,000 subscribers just a few days after leaving his network anchor job. Additionally, each of Acosta’s last two broadcasts have racked up hundreds of comments.
Acosta left CNN last week rather than accept a move from mid-morning to the “graveyard” late-night shift, a proposal that many critics felt was an effort to bury one of the network’s most popular hosts — and an indelible Trump antagonist — in order to throw the new president “a bone.”
While CNN chief Mark Thompson framed his proposal to Acosta as having nothing to do with his editorial stance and merely necessary to make room for other programming lineup changes, Trump reacted with glee when Acosta announced he was leaving the network he had made home for nearly 20 years.
“Looks like somebody has ADS: Acosta Derangement Syndrome,” Acosta tweeted in response to the president’s celebratory post.
Hours after he made his final CNN broadcast, in which he told viewers that it “is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant,” Acosta revealed that he was “going independent” and launching a new online show on Substack.
“Don’t give in to the lies. Don’t give in to fear. Hold on to the truth. Hold on to hope,” Acosta declared in his announcement. “In the meantime ... To President Trump and his allies, you may think you have silenced me. But guess again.”
