Jim Acosta is expected to depart CNN after the network took his morning show off the schedule as part of an anchor shuffle.
Status newsletter first reported on Acosta’s plans on Tuesday evening,
Acosta, who rose to prominence as CNN’s chief White House correspondent during Donald Trump’s first term, has hosted CNN’s 10 a.m. ET hour Newsroom for almost a year, and the show has delivered solid ratings compared to other network shows.
But earlier this month, the network offered him a much less visible time slot: midnight ET, where cable news networks have been running reruns of programming earlier in the day. The anchor told CEO Mark Thompson that the timing — just as the new Trump administration was getting up and running — appeared to be suspicious, according to a source.
Acosta launched a Substack earlier this month, with the message “coming soon.”
CNN announced the anchor lineup changes last week, with Wolf Blitzer moving from evenings to mornings to anchor The Situation Room along with Pamela Brown at 10 a.m. ET. No date was given, but the changes are expected to be rolled out in the coming weeks.
Acosta clashed with Trump on the White House beat, and has continued to feature coverage critical of the administration, including when the president attacks the news media. The network has taken some criticism for the move of Acosta off the schedule, with figures like gun violence prevention advocate Fred Guttenberg calling it an “effort to submit to Trump.”
The network’s midnight ET offer would have put Acosta in primetime on the West Coast and in mornings Europe on CNN International, but the show would be well out of a prime news cycle.
CNN did not have an immediate comment.
