Former CNN anchor Jim Acosta’s Substack podcast motto is “Don't give into the lies. Don't give into fear. Hold on to the truth. And hope.” During a Tuesday interview with former Clinton strategist James Carville, Acosta was neither truthful nor hopeful, but he was very much afraid as he declared, “This is scary shit,” as he suggested President Trump may tamper with the 2026 midterm results, and Carville suggested he might cancel the midterms altogether.
Acosta began his conspiracy theorizing by declaring:
One other thing, there was a question we just popped up from one of our viewers, and they want to know: do you worry about vote tampering in the midterms? Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms and the way we do elections in this country? I mean, with what they're trying to pull these days, they don't want accountability. They don't want Democrats getting the gavels in the House and the Senate, be able to hold hearings, and start impeachment proceedings, and so on. I mean, you worry about that, James? We never had to worry about that?
Carville one-upped Acosta by suggesting there might not even be midterms next year, “In a short word: yes. In the longer words, very. Okay. And I think what may happen, he's going to see the writing on the wall in Virginia. This is what I think is going to happen, and New Jersey also. And he's going to see retirements, and people are going to start coming in and saying, ‘Since, you know, we're getting ready to lose, I got to change and I got to get some distance,’ and he's going to see all that coming, and I don't put anything past him. Nothing. To try to call the election off. To do anything you can—I—and he can think of things like that that, you know, we can't because we're not accustomed to thinking like that.”
He added, “We always assume there's going to be an election… This is a whole new thing, but the person that wrote in on this is—you know people come to me all the time and say, ‘James, I'm really scared.’ I say, ‘You should. You have every reason to be scared.’ Don't kid yourself.”
Acosta agreed, “This is scary shit,” to which Carville reiterated, “Yeah, right, it’s scary. Yeah, really scary.”
If there is one thing Jim Acosta’s podcast has proved, it is that his disgust at election-related conspiracy theories only goes one way.
Here is a transcript for the July 1 show:
The Jim Acosta Show
7/1/2025
23 Minutes, 19 Seconds
JIM ACOSTA: One other thing, there was a question we just popped up from one of our viewers, and they want to know: do you worry about vote tampering in the midterms? Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms and the way we do elections in this country? I mean, with what they're trying to pull these days, they don't want accountability. They don't want Democrats getting the gavels in the House and the Senate, be able to hold hearings, and start impeachment proceedings, and so on. I mean, you worry about that, James? We never had to worry about that?
JAMES CARVILLE: In a short word: yes. In the longer words, very. Okay. And I think what may happen, he's going to see the writing on the wall in Virginia. This is what I think is going to happen, and New Jersey also. And he's going to see retirements, and people are going to start coming in and saying, “Since, you know, we're getting ready to lose, I got to change and I got to get some distance,” and he's going to see all that coming, and I don't put anything past him. Nothing. To try to call the election off. To do anything you can— I—and he can think of things like that that, you know, we can't because we're not accustomed to thinking like that. We always assume there's going to be an election. In your case “How do I cover the election.” My case “How do I affect the election” and we don't think about it.
This is a whole new thing, but the person that wrote in on this is—you know people come to me all the time and say, “James, I'm really scared.” I say, “You should. You have every reason to be scared.” Don't kid yourself.
ACOSTA: This is scary shit.
CARVILLE: Yeah, right, it’s scary. Yeah, really scary.
