From: Jim Acosta <jimacosta@substack.com>
Date: Thu, Feb 13, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Subject: Who Voted For This?
Who Voted For This?Voters went to the polls with taming inflation in mind, but Trump had other ideas
America, you've been had. Where to begin? The Gulf of America? Gaza, "The Riviera of the Middle East?" The Kennedy Center? The Jim Acosta Show is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Talk about "the weave." Can somebody point me to the pivotal moments during the 2024 campaign when Donald Trump discussed his ideas for renaming the Gulf of Mexico or a U.S. takeover of the Gaza Strip? He had plenty of opportunities for laying out such proposals, considering his long, meandering rallies where he rambled about Hannibal Lecter, sharks and windmills. Trump found the time to peddle the outlandish lie that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio were eating cats and dogs. Never did we consider the notion he would sit on the board that decides whether "Les Miserables" would make its triumphant return to the nation's capital. In fact, "Les Mis" is coming back in June, well, at least for now. Tickets are available. What about "The Village People?" Stay tuned. Add Kid Rock and Ted Nugent to the mix and you've got a Trumpapalooza in the making. Just think of all of the Trump products that could fill those merch tables (he must have a warehouse of this stuff somewhere), from faux gold sneakers to vintage Trump ties (not made in the USA natch). Yes, Americans are now waking up to the reality that their downloads of Trump Version 2.0 have come with some serious malware. The pardons and commutations of all of the January 6th rioters and insurrectionists went way beyond what even his own Vice President, the mostly invisible J.D. Vance, contemplated when he suggested that Trump would opt against clemency for the criminals who beat up cops. No wonder 47 doesn't really see Vance as much of a 48. Trump on Vance 48 As Michael Fanone told me on the podcast, those pardons will go down as Trump's first of many second-term scandals. Several of the pardoned Jan. 6 offenders are already being arrested for new alleged crimes. The new Trump Justice Department, led, in part, by his former legal defense team has threatened to reveal the identities of FBI agents who investigated the attack on the Capitol. When Trump told voters, "I am your retribution," perhaps doxxing law enforcement officers was somewhere in the fine print? I must have missed that too. Sure, Elon Musk became a staple of the Trump rallies during the final weeks of the 2024 campaign. And it's true Trump and the world's richest man did vow to use a Department of Government Efficiency to root out waste from the federal bureaucracy. Not a terrible idea, I suppose. But giving Musk and his minions carte blanche to harvest the data of millions of Americans was somehow left out of the conversation. Also missing from the chat was how this unelected, unaccountable data mining effort would be cloaked in secrecy. The White House says Musk's financial disclosure form will be kept confidential. Last time I checked, the idea of disclosure is to disclose. Musk financial disclosure Yes, it's been said by others. But let's say it again. Imagine the howls if a President Hillary Clinton (but her emails) had done the same thing. And then there's the absurd monstrosity that is Trump's idea to have the U.S. occupy the Gaza Strip. Put aside his crass promise of turning the region into the "Riviera of the Middle East" or the grotesque notion that America would somehow be a part of the forced removal of the Palestinians from the area. I'm old enough to remember the then-reality TV star and real estate developer savaging President George W. Bush over his handling of the War in Iraq, something Trump once described as "the single worst decision ever made." Trump on Bush/Iraq After ruling out the idea of putting U.S. military boots on the ground in Gaza, Trump has yet to explain how he would "take over" the area. It won't be USAID. Were voters ever aware that Trump, upon returning to the White House, would utter this sentence: "The Gaza Strip would be turned over to the US by Israel at the conclusion of fighting." Take a moment and read that sentence. Read it again. Trump on Gaza The same Trump who ran on "no new wars" during in 2024 has been weaving like an old-fashioned 20th century expansionist, with talk of other takeovers. The Panama Canal? Mine! Greenland? Mine! Canada? Mine! Am I the only one thinking about that classic Daffy Duck cartoon? Daffy Duck: It's mine! Daffy indeed. Of course, Trump is making good on his promises to seek retribution against his political enemies, both real and imagined. And he's definitely in the process of delivering a bonanza to the fossil fuel industry, as he promised that corner of the donor class. The rollout of tariffs and mass deportations has begun. All true. Still, in this not-so final analysis, the Trump 2024 campaign appears to have been the ultimate bait and switch. And it's way worse than Trump's lie that he had nothing to do with Project 2025. Voters were sold on Trump's plans for inflation and immigration. But the gap between those proposals and what is being contemplated in the Oval Office these days is about the size of the Gulf of It's possible that Trump's Oval Office ramblings about the three G's (Gaza, Greenland, and the Gulf) are little more than a kind of "open mic night" at the White House. I've often said many of the world's problems would have been solved if Fox had just given Trump his own primetime show a decade ago. Though that could have saddled us with a President Tucker Carlson. America now has four more years before it can leave "the weave." Unless he decides to stay longer. Voters will be lucky if the worst thing that happens is Trump doing his "YMCA" jig at the Kennedy Center. I ask: who voted for this? The Jim Acosta Show is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. You're currently a free subscriber to The Jim Acosta Show. For the full experience, upgrade your subscription.
© 2025 Jim Acosta
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