Chip Roy Rages At Jim Acosta Over Trump-Fueled ‘Gulf Of America’ Bill In Sidewalk Fracas
Jim Acosta asked Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) why Republicans “wasted time” trying to codify President Donald Trump’s rebranding of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America” instead of doing something “people care about” and Roy bristled when Acosta accused him of “doing Trump’s bidding.”
This week, Republicans in Congress took a cue from Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America by passing a bill to codify the renaming and require federal agencies to update all documents within 180 days:
SEC. 2. Renaming of Gulf of Mexico as “Gulf of America”.
(a) Renaming.—The Gulf of Mexico shall be known as the “Gulf of America”.
(b) References.—Any reference in a law, map, regulation, document, paper, or other record of the United States to the Gulf of Mexico shall be deemed to be a reference to the “Gulf of America”.
(c) Implementation.—
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary of the Interior, acting through the Chairman of the Board on Geographic Names, shall oversee the implementation of the renaming described in subsection (a) with respect to each Federal document and map.
(2) REQUIREMENT.—Not later than 180 days after the date of the enactment of this section, the head of each Federal agency shall update each document and map of the Federal agency in accordance with the renaming described in subsection (a).
On The Jim Acosta Show, Acosta pursued House Republicans on the sidewalks of Capitol Hill to ask why they focused on the name-change bill — and whether they were “just doing Trump’s bidding.”
Roy put up an odd defense in which he compared the name change to Democrats focusing on “birthing people” and “freaking pronouns” and told Acosta “words matter”:
JIM ACOSTA: Congressman, can I ask you about this Gulf of America thing, why did you vote for that? Why do you care? Why not focus on the stuff that people care about?
REP. CHIP ROY: I explained this to the rules committee. I was very clear about it.
Why do Democrats care about their freaking pronouns in all of their social media? Why do the Democrats wanna talk about birthing persons? Why do they — because —
JIM ACOSTA: Yeah, but it’s the Gulf of Mexico.
REP. CHIP ROY: — words matter.
JIM ACOSTA: It’s called the Gulf of Mexico, aren’t you just doing Trump’s bidding? Isn’t that what this is?
REP. CHIP ROY: Who are you?
JIM ACOSTA: My name is Jim Acosta. I’m a journalist here in Washington. I’m asking a question.
REP. CHIP ROY: And why are you focusing on this?
JIM ACOSTA: I’m asking you that question. Because you just spent the time of the House of Representatives to vote on something that — people aren’t gonna call it Gulf of America. They’re gonna call Gulf of Mexico.
REP. CHIP ROY: Jim, what do you think we’re spending time on today? Undoing the damage of the Biden administration, trying to save people’s lives in Texas who are dying because of the by the administration’s policies.
JIM ACOSTA: What damage? The economy was moving in the right direction. Now it’s now the stock market is tanking —
REP. CHIP ROY: Jim —
JIM ACOSTA: The economy is contracting.
REP. CHIP ROY: — daughter was murdered by Tren de Aragua. Go talk to her about it.
JIM ACOSTA: What does that have to do with Gulf of America? And what does that to do with fixing the economy?
REP. CHIP ROY: What, because right now what we’re doing is undoing the damage of the Biden administration who was killing Americans, and by the way, who are damaging Americans with his ridiculous inflationary economy. That’s the truth.
JIM ACOSTA: The inflation — as you know, the inflation numbers were moving in the right direction. You know that.
REP. CHIP ROY: The inflation that was being driven up by Biden with the rampant spending, was destroying the net worth of American people, destroying the dollar, making impossible for American —
JIM ACOSTA: The fact of the matter is, you’ll just vote for anything Trump says. Isn’t that right?
Watch above via The Jim Acosta Show.
