(DCNF)—Former CNN host Jim Acosta claimed on Tuesday that farmers are being “led astray” and voting for “far-right” candidates in U.S. elections.
Acosta stated during a Center For American Progress discussion that the “far-right” has figured out how to “infiltrate the heartland” and get farmers to side with the political right. While name dropping the late conservative host Rush Limbaugh, Acosta argued that many Americans are not getting their information from reliable news.
“The far-right in this country has kind of figured out a way to infiltrate the heartland and to basically to pull Ma and Pa from the farm to their point of view,” Acosta said. “And as it turns out, a lot of these folks vote in these elections and a lot of those folks have been completely led astray. I hate to say it, but they’ve just been completely led astray. And we’ve all just let this happen on our watch with essentially a business model for delivering the news in this country that just does not work anymore.”
Trump has worked to appeal to American farmers through policies he enacted in his first term and current stint in the White House. An overwhelming majority, 77%, of farming-dependent counties across the U.S. supported Trump in the 2024 election, according to Investigate Midwest. In a separate exit poll by AEI, 63% of rural voters supported Trump, and he held a 30-point lead among this demographic in a CNN exit poll.
The former CNN host said the way the news is delivered to Americans “has to change” in order for them to get “reliable” information. Acosta has spewed rhetoric and made baseless claims about President Donald Trump and Republicans during his career.
Acosta recently told Democrat Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett on May 29 that he is worried Trump might arrest her. He complained that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were arresting illegal immigrant criminals, and argued that if it can be done to them, then it can happen to a member of Congress.
The former CNN host appeared to agree with former Biden 2020 campaign ad writer Cliff Schechter that the Democrats do not spend enough time calling Trump a “fascist” during an April 25 segment of “The Jim Acosta Show.”
In 2020, Acosta dismissed reports about Hunter Biden’s laptop by calling the story “just more fake news.” He further accused Trump of being “obsessed with Joe Biden’s son.” During his time as CNN’s White House correspondent, Acosta got his hard pass suspended from the White House during Trump’s first term after he refused to give up his microphone to an intern, though a judge later ruled that his pass be returned.