Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta joked on Monday that he may soon receive a visit from the U.S. Secret Service after sharing – and bursting out laughing over – an image depicting first lady Melania Trump shoving a catering crate containing President Donald Trump off a cliff.

The meme plays on an episode that drew scrutiny last week, when Trump was reported to have hidden inside a catering truck out of fear of a supposed attempt on his life from Tehran. The incident occurred in July but was first reported last week by The Washington Post.

"The whole world is laughing at the President of the United States, which is not a new experience for all of us here in America. But there's one… should we be showing this?" Acosta said Monday on "The Jim Acosta Show" – the independent program he launched after leaving CNN in January 2025, having previously served as the network's chief White House correspondent and clashed openly with Trump during his first term – before starting to laugh as the image was queued up.

"It's Melania pushing the catering container off the cliff. She even has the inauguration hat and everything, and Trump says, 'Natalie, is that you?' Oh my god. Am I going to get in trouble? Am I going to get a knock on the door from U.S. Secret Service? Is this like 86-47? Am I allowed to put this on? Oh, boy."

Acosta's "86-47" comparison is to former FBI Director James Comey, whom Secret Service agents interviewed in May 2025 after he posted – and then deleted – an Instagram photo of seashells arranged to read "86 47," which the Trump administration treated as a possible call for harm against the 47th president. Comey said he assumed the arrangement was a political message and was unaware of any violent connotation, but the episode prompted a federal review and calls from Trump for his prosecution. The scrutiny surrounding such posts reflects the heightened sensitivity to threats against Trump, who survived assassination attempts at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and at his Florida golf club during the 2024 campaign – the backdrop against which Acosta joked about agents showing up at his door.

The reference to "Natalie" included in the image is a likely reference to Natalie Harp, Trump's 34-year-old executive assistant whose closeness to the president has unsettled the White House. Harp has been nicknamed "the human printer" for "following Trump around with a portable printer so she could hand-deliver him hard copies of emails, news articles and social media posts," Yahoo! News reported.

Harp has become estranged from some of her family members, according to reporting from the Daily Mail, including from her own brother, who described her relationship with the president as "very unhealthy."