BEIJING - The Chinese government has laid off its entire propaganda arm, cutting thousands of jobs at China Central Television and other state-run media outlets as the American media is already doing their job for them.

"It seemed kinda redundant for us to have a state-run media when we have the American press," said President Xi at a press conference Monday. "The American media is carrying water for us. It's pretty incredible. We unleashed a virus on the world and lied about it for months, and the American press can't stop praising us. As long as they make their orange leader look bad, they'll repeat any line we feed them."

"Really, we Commies could learn a lot from the propaganda of the press over in America," he added admiringly.

The Communist dictator sat the nervous, state-owned journalists down and asked them, "What would you say you do there?" to which they responded, "We take the propaganda and tell it to the people." But President Xi wasn't fooled, saying that the American press already does that and the redundancy would be eliminated. 

Luckily for the state-owned journalists and broadcasters who lost their jobs in China today, CNN was hiring.