'Very possible' Trump leaves White House early as president 'falls apart': CNN legend

Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta stunned journalist John Harwood in an interview published Sunday after predicting how President Donald Trump’s presidency may end – a prediction that included a potential early departure from the White House amid growing turmoil.

“Do you think there’s a chance that Trump will resign before the end of his term?” Harwood asked Acosta in an interview published by Zeteo.

“I think it’s very possible that he walks away,” Acosta said, citing the ever-increasing list of issues plaguing the Trump administration, from rising costs to the president’s own struggles with supposed cognitive decline.

Acosta said that he believed a Trump resignation was possible, but also predicted another scenario in which the president would leave the White House early – one far more “dangerous,” he warned.

“It may be more in Trump’s nature for him to downward spiral in such a dangerous way that he does maybe go out with a boom or a bang,” Acosta said. “I don’t see him losing these midterms so badly that he just says ‘that’s it, I quit the presidency, I’m walking away’ – I think it’s something that will be bigger than that forces him, perhaps, to leave the presidency.”

As to what could force Trump out of the White House before the end of his term, Acosta pointed to the growing list of reports suggesting the Trump administration may attempt to “steal the midterms.”

“If he tries to steal these midterms… that’s the scenario that I worry about. He’s already trying to steal the midterms, but if it’s done in an overt way where our democracy is really at stake, we’re at the dark side of the moon at that point and I don’t know what happens to this country,” Acosta said.

“I am very worried that he will push this country to the brink to avoid accountability. Everything that he shows us right now – all of the moves he’s making, the way he is falling apart, declining cognitively and so on – leads me to think that this is all heading to a bad place.”