Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta became the focus of widespread online criticism after comparing the removal of President Donald Trump's name from the Kennedy Center to the fall of the Berlin Wall during a lengthy livestream from Washington, D.C.

Acosta, who left CNN in early 2025 after an 18-year career with the network, spent nearly 11 hours livestreaming from outside the Kennedy Center as workers prepared to remove Trump's name from the building following a recent federal court ruling, as reported by Fox News.

The livestream, broadcast on Acosta's YouTube program, "The Jim Acosta Show," began Friday afternoon and continued into the early hours of Saturday morning.

Much of the broadcast featured a live view of scaffolding covered by a tarp while construction crews worked behind it.

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The controversy stemmed from remarks Acosta made during the overnight broadcast as he awaited the removal of the signage.

“This is very much like watching the Berlin Wall coming down,” Acosta said around 3:30 a.m.

“It is a sign that mankind, that humankind can stand up against tyranny,” he continued.

“As long as it took, we pledged to continue to have this coverage going, and by golly, we did, because we knew how much this meant to a lot of people out there, and we know how important this was.”

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The sign removal followed a legal battle over the name of the performing arts center. In December 2025, the Kennedy Center board voted to rename the venue the "Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts."

The move sparked opposition from Democrats and other critics. A Democratic member of Congress subsequently filed a lawsuit challenging the decision.

Last week, a federal judge ruled that the center's original name, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, must be restored.

Ironically, Acosta was not present when workers actually began removing the letters. After spending much of the night broadcasting from the site, he returned home to sleep, leaving the livestream in the hands of his producer.

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More than 10 hours into the broadcast, the producer informed viewers that workers appeared to be removing the letters.

“It looks like they are potentially touching the letters,” the producer said.

“The letters are coming down officially. So this means I'm probably gonna have to give Jim Acosta a call, and he's not gonna be very happy because he will be woken up.”

Acosta then returned to the scene to continue the livestream.

“I had just gotten home, and we thought this might take place later in the morning, and of course, they did this in the dead of the night,” Acosta said.

“They did this at three in the morning, and to make it the icing on the cake, the chef's kiss in all of this for Donald Trump — is that they had to put up a giant white tarp to shield Trump and his feelings from the humiliation of seeing this all come down in front of the cameras.”

Acosta also criticized Trump during the livestream, saying the president “slapped his name illegally and obnoxiously on the exterior of the Kennedy Center” and later claiming Trump “operates like a small child [who] doesn't wanna give his toy away, doesn't want to hand over his toy after his mommy and daddy have told him it's time to go to bed.”

Clips of Acosta's comments quickly spread across social media, where users mocked the comparison between the removal of signage and the collapse of Communist control in Eastern Europe.

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One X user wrote, “Ah, yes. The Berlin Wall famously came down to a crowd of one guy talking to himself and not throngs of elated prisoners. Jim Acosta is wild.”

Conservative commentator Matt Whitlock also weighed in, writing, “This is wild. I can’t imagine having so little going on in my life that I would sit outside a building all day waiting for a name to get removed from it.”

Other users posted similar reactions, with one commenting, “Decades of Communist oppression V. a sign on a building. The similarities are striking.”

The clips continued circulating online throughout the weekend, generating thousands of reactions and turning Acosta's livestream into one of the most discussed political media moments of the day.

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