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Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. Happy 2026. It is a new year, and I thought I'd check in with everybody to give you an update on our big event coming up next week On Tuesday, on January 6th, we're going to be doing a remembrance of sorts of that day, but also looking forward to what is going to be a hugely important year. 2026 is going to be a pivotal year in this country. And, and there's gonna be a lot to talk about it. So I'm gonna mention that in just a few moments. But I did want to, and I see some of the comments coming in right now. Nice tan. Yes. I have been in the islands of Aloha over the last week. So if you're, if you're somebody who lives in Hawaii, thank you so much for what has been a rejuvenating and refreshing and recharging week over here. And I joked on Don Lemon's New Year's Eve stream cast that I had to get as far away from Donald Trump as I could with while staying in the United States. And so I think I achieved that. But no, seriously, that was not the purpose of the trip. The purpose was to, to recharge, and I definitely did that. And, and folks are noticing the tan. Yes. There's, there's also a sunburn right here on my nose. I thought I was reapplying the sunscreen and that did not exactly happen as well as I probably should have. So forgive me if I'm a little rusty, Tom. It's been a good week or so before I've really, you know, done one of these. No guests today. Wanted to just check in with everybody, see how everybody's doing as we're heading into this new year, and then talk about some of the stories that I'm looking at. I don't know what you guys are looking at, but of course, I couldn't stay too far away from the news. And I mean, I think, you know, just looking at 2026, obviously the midterm elections are coming up in November. And I think the story that might hurt Trump and the Republicans more than anything, El, is a story that I caught in, of all places, the New York Post. And I was surprised as to how the New York Post, the Murdoch owned New York Post, framed this one time has run out. The New York Post says for lawmakers to extend the enhanced Obamacare subsidies before they expire at year's end, which happened, of course, at the end of 2025, putting Republicans on the hot seat with health care policy as they gear up for the midterms. I just want to throw this out here because you guys have heard me start my show so many times by saying it's another day that ends and why. And one of the things that I Talked about throughout 2025, I'm going to be talking about it again throughout 2026, is the affordability crisis in America. We absolutely have an affordability crisis in the United States. And healthcare might be at the top of that list. Listen to this. This is in the New York Post. Due to the lack of action on the part of Trump and the Republicans, remember, they try to blame things on the Democrats. They control the White House, they control the Congress. But due to the lack of action on the part of Donald Trump and the Republicans in Congress, 22 million Americans, or 92% of enrollees in the Obamacare exchanges are expected to face out of pocket increases, including ones as high as thousands of dollars in some cases. And so this is going to be, this is going to be a massive story. One of the things that I've learned covering politics for the last 30 years is that these elections, by and large are on the economy. And lately in the last 10 to 15, maybe 20 years have been about healthcare. I remember covering the passage of the Affordable Care Act. That was a massive undertaking by Barack Obama when he was president. It brought millions of Americans into the healthcare market in the United States and gave people healthcare in the United States. And now we're facing a situation where people are going to be leaving the market which is going to make healthcare more expensive for all of us. So, you know, as I've talked about many times on this show, I'm going to talk about it again. We're going to continue to talk about it in 2026. The issue of Obamacare and people seeing their premiums go up, it's not just about those people. If people leave the health insurance market because their health insurance costs have gone up, their premiums gone up, guess who pays for the rest of that? Yes, you and me. Even if we have employer based healthcare, that those costs are undoubtedly going to go up too. And so the system is facing, I think, a real cliff. Folks have called it a healthcare cliff, an Obamacare cliff. I think we are heading towards a cliff. And until we come up with a better system in this country, we're going to be in a whole lot of trouble. And I think what the Republicans are doing is they're, they're kind of digging their own political graves here because not only are they facing the prospect of getting their asses kicked in the 2026 midterms because they have not addressed this crisis. They are, in my personal opinion, I think they are laying the political groundwork for Democrats to run on health care in 2028 and for some of those Democrats. And I think this would be wise for Democrats to run on this, to run on national single payer healthcare. You have to have, I think, at some point in this country, national single payer healthcare, an American version of that. So everybody has coverage. So we're not doing this sort of patchwork system of some people have health care, health insurance, some people don't have health insurance, some people are on Medicare, some people are on Medicaid, some people get government support, others don't get government support. It's a cockamamie crazy system. We all get bills in the mail from our health insurance companies, from our doctor's offices. Does anybody understand why a trip to the doctor costs $67.94 and then your kid goes to the Doctor and it's $150.72. Does anybody understand why it's that amount of money? I don't understand it. Nobody understand it. And my guess is the health insurance people don't understand it. And so as, yeah, and there are folks who are pointing out that Republicans have said we're all going to die anyway. Remember when Joanie Ern said that we're all going to die anyway, that cost her her Senate seat. And so, you know, not to go on too much of a tangent here and belabor this, too much. But I think healthcare is the big issue heading into the 2026 midterms. I think, of course, democracy and the sanctity of our elections, our election process, that's going to be paramount. But the story that may hurt, mark my words here, the story that may hurt Trump or the Republicans more than anything else, these Obamacare subsidies, we'll see if they do something about it. The other big story heading into 2026 that I think people need to pay attention to, and we're already paying attention to it. You've heard me talk about this many times on the show when I said it's another day that ends in Y in the Epstein gate cover up. We still have an Epstein gate cover up going on. So, you know, it may be 2026, there may be a new digit on the end of the year, but the Epstein gate cover up continues. We don't have all the files released. Apparently there are millions upon millions of files that are still being released. And the Wall Street Journal once again had an. Again, I'm not doing a Murdoch show here. This is not a Murdoch show. I mentioned the New York Post. I'm now mentioning the Wall Street Journal. But the Wall Street Journal reported the headline was the incident that prompted Trump to ban Epstein from Mar A Lago's spa. Now, of course, the framing of that headline, who, you know, we can take issue with that. But this talks about how Jeffrey Epstein wasn't just a frequent visitor to Donald Trump's club in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This is according to the Wall Street Journal. The club was also sending spa employees, usually young women, to Epstein's nearby mansion for massages, manicures, and other spa services, according to former Mar A Lago and Epstein employees is the Wall Street Journal. The House calls went on for years, the Journal says, even as spa employees warn each other about Epstein, who was known among staff for being sexually suggestive and exposing himself during the appointments. Now, the reason why I bring this up, the reason why I think this is a hugely important story, is that, you know, you know, Donald Trump has said his, his aides have said, oh, you know, Trump and Epstein, they had a falling out because Trump thought Epstein was a creep and he kicked him out of his club. Okay, then why were they friends for so many years? Is my response to this. Why hasn't anybody asked this question in the briefing room? At what point did it dawn on Donald Trump that Jeffrey Epstein was a pedophile? At what point did, did that information come across his desk? Did he care enough, and I think I know the answer to that, to do something about it in a timely fashion. The more these stories come out, the worse it is for Donald Trump. The more these stories out, the more we find out that we just don't know the full story. And so I, you know, to me, that again, is going to be a story that dogs Donald Trump and the Republicans. The Republicans tried to carry Trump's water and cover it up for as long as they could. And then, of course, the bill was passed and signed into law by Donald Trump to release the Epstein files, which, as we've said many times, a law was not necessary. You know, and speaking of that, that is why you're going to see from time to time, Donald Trump try to change the narrative. Donald Trump tried to change the headlines, try to change the news cycle. I saw this so many times when I covered him as White House correspondent. As one advisor told me, Donald Trump doesn't like to be in The B block. He likes to be in the A block, to use newscast producing parlance. And, you know, so keep this in mind when you hear stories like this in the New York Times. Day Trump says the US Is locked and loaded over Iran. Trump on Friday said that the US Would come to the aid of protesters in Iran if the government there used lethal force against them. And the comment that Trump used in a post on Truth Social, he says, we are locked and loaded and ready to go. Now, as soon as I saw this story, I knew exactly what Trump was up to. And I said, you know, just take a look at what the associate Press is reporting. Look at what the major news outlets are reporting. This already has injected this headline into the news cycle that Trump may go to war in Iran or Trump may carry out airstrikes in Iran over these protests. Again, this is Donald Trump. And this is why I use the phrase another day that ends and why he thinks of himself. He wants that Nobel Peace Prize so badly. He talks about being a peace president so much in such a nauseating fashion. And yet week to week, we see stories where he's threatening to bomb the shit out of some other country. And this week it's Iran. Next week it'll be Venezuela. Next week, God knows what that country will be. But he does this, and I will tell you, he does this because he wants to change the news cycle from stories that he doesn't like. And what might be one of those stories that he doesn't like? Oh, I don't know, maybe one on his health. One other, one final story that I'm looking at heading into 2026 are, you know, would be under the category of Trump's health. Again, another Wall Street Journal story. He did an interview with the Wall Street Journal. He made this weird comment about why he takes aspirin as much as he does. They're claiming that, I mean, Caroline Levitt lied to the country and said that the bruises on Donald Trump's hand are due to his excessive handshaking at the White House, which was a crock of shit we all knew was a crock of shit. Caroline Levin Levitt speaks. It's pretty much always a crock of shit, but apparently it is also due to his use of aspirin or his overuse of aspirin. He made this comment to the Wall Street Journal, which, you know, I'm trying not to pay attention to the news too much while I'm on vacation, but this one jumped out at me. He said, quote, they say aspirin is good for thinning out the blood. And I don't want thick blood pouring through my heart. I want nice thin blood pouring through my heart. Does that make sense? No, Donald Trump, that does not make sense. I don't know. Does he really think he can regulate the thickness of his blood pouring through his heart? God bless his heart, you know, bless his heart that he thinks that. But no, Donald Trump, you cannot do that. But again, they said in this or he said in this story that it wasn't an MRI that he got earlier, I guess, last year, it was a CT scan. And so we're continuing to get these shifting stories, the shifting narratives about his health, why his hands are bruising as much as they are. He puts the, as I've said many times, he uses the CVS makeup. Maybe it's Maybelline. I don't know. He doesn't practice the blending as he should on the hands. And so we see these very strange, I mean, we already knew the hands were strange, but very strange hands and how they appear in public with the strange makeup on it. And again, what we've said, what I've said many times, and I'll say it again here, and I'm going to say it going into 26 as often as I can, is, you know, Donald Trump's health is in serious decline. That is apparent to everybody. He is getting drowsier and sleepier on the job. He, I guess we'll have to figure out what day of the week it'll be next week when he falls asleep in the Oval Office or in the Cabinet meetings that he'll undoubtedly have, where they'll go around the room and praise the Dear Leader and try to keep him awake. But is he going to be passing out once again during these official White House events? Stay tuned for that, I guess. But the question of Trump's health is not going to go away because he has made the health of the President of the United States, the stamina of the President of the United States, the alertness of the President of the United States. Remember, he said Sleepy Joe over and over again. All of that is relevant because he has made the issue relevant. He has made the age of the president relevant. He's going to turn 80 years old in 2026. So, of course, we'll be paying close attention to that. Finally, folks, before I go, the anniversary of the fifth anniversary of January 6th is fast approaching. That's going to be coming up on this Tuesday. And the reason why I'm mentioning this, and you've probably seen my post about this. You've heard me talk about this. I talked about it earlier in the week when I was just getting my vacation going and wanted to do a quick post earlier in the week. But I had Glenn, I had Olivia, had Harry Dunn on to remind everybody. And I'm going to remind you again that this Tuesday, this coming Tuesday will be five years since the attack on the Capitol. On January 6th, we're going to have a day of remembrance at the National Press Club. The doors are going to open at 5pm you're going to need a ticket for this. And the tickets have just about run out. If you have any idea as to, you know, perhaps you may come. Time is running out to get a ticket. I'm not saying that to put pressure on anybody, but if you're going to be in the D.C. area and you want to see it live and in person, you'll have to get a ticket for that because we are, we are doing that to sort of, you know, manage and control the security aspect of the event. But it'll be myself, former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, who was of course, on the January 6 committee, former officers Michael Fanone, Harry Dunn, Akalina Gannell, Daniel Hodges, who all figured prominently in what took place that day in the attack on the Capitol. Olivia Troy, Miles Taylor, Glenn Kirschner and I will also talk about next steps. That's going to be a key feature of this event, protecting our democracy, protecting our elections heading into this very pivotal 2026 midterm cycle. So we'll be having a conversation about all of that. And just to keep, you know, this issue fresh in your mind, one of the reasons why I think it should all stay fresh in our mind. I mean, just look at what Jack Smith, former special counsel who investigated the attack on the Capitol, remember what he said in this video testimony that came out just this past week? This is what he said on video before House committee investigating all of this. But they brought in Jack Smith to testify and he said, quote, the attack that happened at the Capitol does not happen without Donald Trump. The other co conspirators were doing this for his benefit. The other co conspirators were doing this for his benefit. And so Jack Smith, the special counsel, spoke to a House committee, testified on this and again tells us what we already know, what we already knew that, that the January 6th attack on the Capitol would not have happened had it not been for Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. And you know something, that we're all going to be keeping an eye out for on January 6th and in the hours and perhaps couple of days leading up, leading up to it, is that some of the folks who are involved in that rioting, some of the folks who are involved in that insurrection, they're apparently going to be in Washington, D.C. and some of them should never have gotten out of jail in the first place. Scott McFarland, who was a Capitol Hill correspondent over at CBS, put out a tweet that I thought was very important. If you guys want to go take a look at that on X. He has a great threat that I'll call your attention to. He writes, one year after the pardons, a growing number of January 6th riot defendants are in new legal peril. Here are some. And he goes through one person after another who was arrested, tried, convicted, put in prison for their actions on January 6th. They all got those blanket pardons and commutations from Donald Trump. And many of them are reoffending in violent ways. And it just underlines the threat of not only to public safety, but to our democracy itself, to our system of government itself, to our way of life itself. And that is why, folks, we're going to be talking about this on January 6th coming up on Tuesday. If you can't tune in, if you can't be with us in person, you will be able to tune in. So we are going to live stream it and get it out to folks who can't get down to the national press Club in D.C. that day maybe are out of town live in different parts of the country, all over the world. We're going to make sure you're going to be able to see that. So stay tuned for all that that's coming up this Tuesday on January 6th, a very important day of remembrance. We want to look back and beat back the lies that have been told. Donald Trump continues to lie about January 6th. He continues to lie about the 2020 election. We not only want to beat back the lies, but we want to lay the groundwork for the truth, for the truth to win the day and for democracy to win the day. Folks, this is 2026. This is I don't want to say it's all the marbles, but I think just about everything is on the line depending on what happens heading into these midterms. And we're going to see Trump and the Republicans, by hook or by crook, as I like to say, attempt to make it, at the very least, make it as difficult as possible for people to vote. Coming up this fall, during those midterm elections, we're Gonna have to wait and see as to whether they actually try to circumvent and subvert our constitutional process. They're already trying to redistrict and redraw the congressional maps to sort of stack the deck in their favor. And so this is going to be extremely important. So keep in mind, January 6th, we're going to have this live basically town hall event at the National Press Club. Doors open at 5pm we have an eventbrite set up in case you want to get tickets to be there in person. There's only a few tickets left, so I just want to caution everybody, if you get on the site, the tickets are gone. I'm sorry. There's a certain capacity that they have at the venue, but I just want to make, make everybody aware of that as, as we head into 2026. I hope your holidays were special for you as they were for me. This holiday season was. Was very special for me and, you know, in so many different ways that, you know, I'll never forget. And this was also a time for me these last days of this past week, the week before. I hope you don't mind, I took a little time off to refuel, recharge and get ready for this new year. I'm very excited heading into this new year. Big plans for not only the show, but for this, this new media enterprise that I've been building along with some others. And there's more to say about all of that as we get going. But just want to thank you once again, as I did at the end of last year and heading into this year, you know, I started off January of 2025, leaving my old place and I had a video message there at the end where I said, you know, don't. Don't give into the lies. Don't give into the fear. Hold on to the truth and hope. And that's my message heading into 2026. We can't give in. We can't give in to these lies that are gonna be told this year. We have to hold onto the truth. But more than anything else, folks, we have to hold on to hope. You can't give up. As dark as things might get over these next 10 or 11 months, heading into the midterms. Cause I mean, there's gonna be. Keep in mind, you know, one of the key words of this year may be desperation. Donald Trump is desperate and there's going to be some desperation on display heading into these midterms. You saw the Truth Social post about locked and loaded on Iran. I mean, he's recycling the old hits. It's the same language he used about North Korea. He's gonna do batshit crazy stuff between now and the end of this year. But that is why holding onto hope is so very important. You have to hold on to hope and a little bit of faith in your fellow American that we are going to get through this and we're going to do this by fighting for the truth, fighting for this, this idea that the American way of life is not going to be, not going to be ripped away from us. Not on our watch. Not on our watch. And so just a quick message, not totally a quick message, the last 20 minutes or so from yours truly, but I wanted to touch base with all of you, let you know that I'm back. And we'll be raring to go next week with new shows, new guests and of course, a big special coming up on January 6th. So stay tuned for all of that. But in the meantime, still reporting not from Washington, but soon to be Washington, on my way back soon. I'm Jim Acosta. Have a great weekend, everybody. Great to see all of you. Great to see all the comments. Wonderful to see somebody. And thank you for commenting on my tan or my sunburn as it may be. And yes, a lot of scruff here. I will be clean shaven starting next week, but I wanted to enjoy a little bit of the beach bum life as long as I could. And Duke will be back, too. I know. I see some of the folks there talking about Duke as well. But in the meantime, thanks so much for tuning in, folks. A quick message to start the year. And I'll see you on the other side back in D.C. next week. Mahalo. Aloha. See you guys. Talk soon. Sam.