Page 6 The Sun Bay Paper April 15, 2026 Jim Acosta Whines Trump Is ‘Winning’ His War on the Press Don’t look now, but FCC Chairman Brendan Carr and Jim Acosta agree on something: President Donald Trump is “winning” his effort to reshape the media landscape in his second term. Appearing on the “Power Lines” podcast with his fellow ardent leftists Oliver Darcy and Jon Passantino, Acosta glumly proclaimed, “I don’t think it takes a rocket scientist to figure out that Donald Trump is winning in his, you know, quest to reshape the media in this country that he’s cracked the code on how to hurt the press in the U.S.” Acosta recently testified at a Democrat pseudo-hearing before Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), warning about how Larry and David Ellison had taken over CBS and are now planning to acquire CNN. He accused Trump of committing “an assault on our freedom of speech ... taking us down the road of Putin and China to state-controlled media.” Darcy and Acosta both constantly paint the Ellisons as creating “MAGA-coded” media. It’s always bizarre to hear Jim Acosta warning of “partisan hacks” in TV news, and “propaganda networks,” like CNN and Acosta weren’t sounding like that for Barack Obama or against Donald Trump. Acosta told the podcasters, “We don’t need to have propaganda networks in the U.S. I mean, and by the way, there’s already a propaganda network over at Fox. We don’t, we don’t need more of them.” Despite Acosta’s blathering about Trump’s “campaign to basically destroy the free press in the United States,” there is no shortage of negative coverage of Trump across the elitist media landscape. Anyone watching CBS right now isn’t noticing much difference between them and ABC and NBC. The Big Three evening newscasts are still uber-negative about Trump, most recently about the war in Iran. In a few weeks, they’ll be hating something else he does. If you go back to Acosta’s CNN war on Trump in the first term, he constantly claimed Trump was endangering the lives of reporters by calling them “Fake News” and the “Enemy of the People.” Meanwhile, it couldn’t be imagined that the media might inspire attempts on Trump’s life by constantly suggesting he was a wannabe dictator, basically an American Hitler. Acosta and Team Darcy pretend that CBS, CNN and The Washington Post are now under Trump’s thumb. Acosta insisted “the people” have figured this out, and “that’s why a lot of people are turning away from the traditional broadcast networks. They’re turning away from places like The Washington Post because they’re seeing these oligarchs take over these news organizations and, you know, turn them into House organs for the Trump administration.” If Acosta believes his own rhetoric, it’s only because he’s not actually reading or watching the journalistic output. It’s more likely that he’s just trying to goad them into being as hyper-critical as he is. It’s not hard to accuse a media outlet of “going soft” when they label Trump a fascist a little less often, or commit so-called atrocities like granting half a minute to the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 riot. It’s apparently appalling to conduct an interview with the president where he gets to speak for two sentences without being aggressively Accosted, CNN-style. This is the same attack dog who announced on CNN in 2009 that Obama’s first inaugural speech “may be more than the speech of his lifetime. Historians and speechwriters say it could be one for the ages.” In 2013, during the Obama inauguration parade, he gushed that “I feel like I should pinch myself right now.” The partisan hack pretends he was just as tough on Obama. He was nothing of the sort. Tim Graham Director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and Executive Editor of the blog NewsBusters.org The Lee Board of County Commissioners continued its commitment Tuesday to rebuilding and expanding the Fort Myers Beach fishing pier, voting to award a $11.7 million construction contract for the project. The reconstruction by RJ Gorman Contracting LLC will extend the pier to roughly 1,000 feet long and 12 feet wide, or more than 70% longer and 50% wider than the pier destroyed by Hurricane Ian in September 2022. The pier will incorporate reinforced concrete piles, a concrete deck, aluminum railings, an entry gate and three shade structures, establish ing the pier as a durable community landmark. Construction will start after all permits are received and is expected to take about a year. The Board approved the design phase of this project in April 2024. Given the project's scope and complexity, numerous permits are necessary before construction commences. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection sanctioned the project on Sept. 3, 2025; a special exception was granted by the Town of Fort Myers Beach on Nov. 19, 2025; and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently conducting a review. Construction is expected to commence upon obtaining final approval from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. FEMA is conducting the EHP (Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation) compliance review. The rebuilt pier will be in the same location as the destroyed pier, adjacent to Lynn Hall Memorial Park and Crescent Beach Family Park. The project is planned to be funded through the Florida Department of Emergency Management Legislative Appropriation Program, Tourist Development Tax funds, and RESTORE Act grants stemming from the BP/Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in 2010. For more information about the Gulf Consortium, visit www.gulfconsortium.org. Keep up with the project by visiting the Parks Project Information Tool at www.leegov.com/ parks. To receive updates from Lee County Government, sign up for the newsletter here: www. leegov.com/resources/newsletters and follow on social media: www.leegov.com/socialmedia. Lee County Government Fort Myers Beach Fishing Pier
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