President Trump on Monday endorsed a federal tax incentive for film and television production, throwing his weight behind a bipartisan push to hand working Americans' tax dollars to an industry that has spent years demonizing them from every screen in the country.
The proposal would layer a new federal production credit on top of incentives already offered by 39 states, funneling taxpayer money to studios and streamers that voluntarily shipped jobs to Canada and the U.K. to maximize profits — then used the savings to lecture the heartland about privilege, pronouns, and systemic bigotry. Hollywood has lost roughly 73,000 jobs since the streaming bubble burst in 2022, according to Variety, and now it wants Washington to make up the difference.
Trump announced the push on Truth Social after meeting with actor Jon Voight, his self-styled "Hollywood ambassador." "Hollywood is a Complete and Total Disaster!" Trump wrote. "Jon, and many others in the Industry, are suggesting we do Federal Tax Incentives in order to Make our Movie and Television Production Business GREAT AGAIN."
The details are thin. Trump offered no dollar figure, no percentage, no timeline. According to Variety, Sen. Adam Schiff has circulated draft legislation for a 15% credit on domestic labor costs, while the Motion Picture Association and Voight's representatives have pushed for 20%. Deadline reported the general consensus is around 25% initially. Whatever the final number, the cost to taxpayers would be substantial.
Here's where it gets telling: the usual partisan combatants are suddenly lockstep. Schiff — one of Trump's most relentless antagonists — said he was in "strong agreement" and urged Congress to act immediately. Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA) praised the measure. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who more than doubled the Golden State's own credit program to $750 million last year, is on board, per Deadline. MPA CEO Charles Rivkin rushed out a statement applauding Trump. The unions — SAG-AFTRA, the DGA, the WGA — all support it. When Schiff, Newsom, and Trump agree on spending your money, reach for your wallet.
NBC News framed Trump's call as a straightforward policy proposal and buried the corporate-welfare angle entirely. The Hollywood Reporter and Deadline covered it as industry news, with Deadline noting the "land speed record" at which Rivkin issued his supportive statement. The New York Post came closest to noting the irony — an industry in deep-blue California asking red-state America to subsidize it — but didn't push the question further.
The industry's case is simple: other countries offer generous incentives, and productions have fled. That's true. But it's also true that Hollywood studios and streamers chose those locations voluntarily, then turned around and used their product to push an ideological agenda that treats traditional Americans as backward bigots. Now they want those same Americans to underwrite the next season of content.
Trump predicted the incentive "will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury's coffers." Every industry seeking a handout promises it will pay for itself. The numbers rarely bear that out.
Follow the money: The MPA represents the major studios and streamers — the same conglomerates that have consolidated media power and flooded every living room with woke programming. Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison met with Republican House committee members in July to lobby for the credit, The Hollywood Reporter noted, even as his company faces an antitrust lawsuit from a dozen states. The lobbying class is all-in.
The open question is whether a federal tax credit for Hollywood is anything more than corporate welfare dressed up as jobs policy — and whether an industry that has made an enemy of Middle America deserves a dime from the taxpayers it holds in contempt.
