Rosie O’Donnell Went on Jim Acosta’s Show and Said Something That Left Him Completely Speechless

In 2018, Jim Acosta grabbed a White House microphone and physically refused to let go of it – then told America he was defending the free press.

CNN eventually decided even they'd had enough, stripped him of his timeslot, and offered him the midnight shift like a punishment detail.

Now he runs a Substack where this week's guest – Rosie O'Donnell, calling in from her self-imposed Irish exile – said something about the Butler assassination attempt so unhinged that even Acosta had to pause.

Rosie O'Donnell's Latest Trump Conspiracy Theory Goes Further Than Ever

O'Donnell didn't warm up.

She launched directly into the claim that the July 2024 assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania – where a gunman killed one attendee and wounded others before being shot dead by law enforcement – was somehow staged or faked.

"His ear miraculously healed," O'Donnell declared on the live broadcast. "His ear miraculously regenerated. People, what else do you need?"

She called it a "magic ear." She said there should be a documentary about it.

A man named Corey Comperatore died at Butler that day. His family buried him.

O'Donnell has been running this conspiracy circuit for nearly two decades. In 2007, she told The View's national audience that fire had "for the first time in history" melted steel on 9/11 – implying the World Trade Center collapses were an inside job. She later partnered with the group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth to screen films claiming the U.S. government killed its own citizens. She has said on the record she does not believe the official account of September 11th.

This is the person Jim Acosta treats as a credible political commentator.

On the Jim Acosta Show, a Conspiracy Spirals and Nobody Pushes Back

Any journalist worth the title would have stopped O'Donnell at the word "miraculously."

Acosta didn't stop her. He sat there. Then he pivoted – not to challenge the conspiracy – but to point to what he called the "weird" thing about Trump: the makeup on his hand.

That was his contribution. Hand makeup.

Then Acosta went further on his own, fantasizing aloud about a Kamala Harris presidency. He claimed the country now has "detention camps that are like gulags popping up" – a claim with zero factual basis – and mourned that Trump had been returned to office at all.

This is the man who left CNN vowing to "hold on to the truth."

The truth is that Acosta spent the Obama years cultivating access, the first Trump term cultivating fame, and now spends his days on Substack cultivating an audience that rewards him for platforming people like Rosie O'Donnell.

https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/2026422518542676389

Trump Derangement Syndrome Has a Body Count

Rosie O'Donnell didn't become a conspiracy theorist this week.

She claimed Melania Trump uses a body double. She accused Trump of staging a military flyover to distract from his crimes. She has suggested, without evidence, that Trump manipulated the 2024 election results.

Every one of those claims aired on The Jim Acosta Show. Not one was challenged.

The White House didn't mince words after this week's broadcast. Spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said O'Donnell "clearly suffers from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome and it's better for the entire country that she decided to move away."

Acosta built his entire brand on the idea that he was brave enough to ask the hard questions – the guy who wouldn't put down the microphone, the truth-teller CNN couldn't contain. What he actually built was a platform where a serial conspiracy theorist can suggest a man's death was fake and the host's response is to pivot to hand makeup.

Corey Comperatore's family knows what happened in Butler. They don't need a documentary. They need people like Jim Acosta to stop platforming the woman who says otherwise.

Sources:

• Mariane Angela, "Rosie O'Donnell Goes So Far Off Rails on Trump That Even Jim Acosta Can't Join Her," Daily Caller, February 24, 2026.
• Alex Christy, "Acosta Grins as Rosie O'Donnell Goes Full Trump Assassination Truther," NewsBusters, September 6, 2025.
• Scott Whitlock, "Reminder: ABC Employed Radical 9/11 Truther Nut Rosie O'Donnell for Years," NewsBusters, September 11, 2021.
• "Rosie O'Donnell Addresses Whether She Plans on Returning to the U.S.," Fox News, September 5, 2025.
• Joseph Wulfsohn, "Jim Acosta Leaving CNN After Being Pulled from Network's Programming Schedule," Fox News, January 28, 2025.
• "Nasty Rosie O'Donnell Makes a Wild Claim About Melania Trump," OutKick, December 3, 2025.