Jim Acosta mocked after 11-hour livestream over Trump name removal at Kennedy Center

Former CNN anchor and current YouTube creator Jim Acosta spent nearly 11 hours livestreaming outside the Kennedy Center in Washington, expecting the removal of Donald Trump’s name from the building. During the broadcast, he compared the moment to the fall of the Berlin Wall and said, “It is a sign that humanity can stand up to tyranny.”

The backdrop was a December 2025 decision by the Kennedy Center’s leadership to rename the venue the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Performing Arts Memorial Center.” After a lawsuit filed by a Democratic congresswoman, a federal court ruled last week that the original name must be restored.

Acosta, however, missed the actual moment when the letters came down after leaving home to sleep. He only returned after his producer called him. When he got back, he said workers had removed the letters at 3 a.m. and covered the area with a large tarp to “protect Trump and his feelings from humiliation.”

He then attacked Trump directly, saying the president had “illegally slapped his name on the front of the center” and was acting “like a little kid who does not want to return his toy.” Clips from the livestream spread on X and drew widespread ridicule, including one user who mocked the Berlin Wall comparison as being “just a sign on a building,” not mass oppression.