A day after endorsing a bipartisan move for a federal film and TV tax incentive, Donald Trump is doubling down on the initiative.
With jobs, jobs, jobs and production, production, production at the heart of the so-called Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act, the U.S. President and former Emmy nominee is getting a lot of love from some of Hollywood’s biggest guilds and most powerful unions.
“The Teamsters thank President Donald Trump and this administration for prioritizing passage of a federal film tax credit,” union boss and 2024 GOP convention speaker Sean O’Brien tweeted Tuesday.
“The Teamsters proudly represent tens of thousands of American workers who built our film and television industry — and who depend on production work returning to this country and thriving once again nationwide,” O’Brien added. “Our union is ready to work with all elected officials committed to supporting a Federal Production Incentive. Let’s get to work and get it done!”
That last line from the O’Brien echoed Trump’s own Monday missive after meeting with Hollywood Ambassador Jon Voight and some producers this week.
“I am going to suggest that Republicans and Democrats get together, and immediately craft Legislation to save the Movie, Television, and Entertainment Business in America,” he posted on Truth Social. “Congress should approve, immediately, a Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America. It can be done quickly, accurately, efficiently and, importantly, will benefit ALL of America. What we watch on the Silver Screen should be made in what was once the Movie and Motion Picture Capital of the World. Let’s get this done!”
Still, for all the repeated talk of bipartisan support and efforts, there has been little direct outreach and contact with the big Democratic players in the Hollywood arena, sources tell me. “Donald Trump wants this to be the Donald Trump show,” a DC insider says of the creation of significant federal incentives. At the same time, after months of lobbying from the likes of Voight, Paramount CEO David Ellison and MPA impute, the crafting of the Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act is said to be occurring behind closed GOP doors with assurances of an “imminent” unveiling.
Certainly, Trump has been keeping the volume high with dual salvos.
Trump was up early this morning calling out the “great bipartisan response and support” to the still-scant-on-details incentives.
Declaring his pal Voight “stopped by the White House in order to support the Movie and Television Industry in America!,”Trump posted another pic this afternoon direct from the gilded Oval Office.
Having been onboard since a 20%-25% federal tax credit was first floated last year in respective proposals from Midnight Cowboy alum Voight, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA), SAG-AFTRA started September with another full-throated roar of approval — with the requisite lathering the current POTUS requires.
“Production is the lifeblood of our industry and the communities that support it,” guild president Sean Astin and National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement today. “President Trump’s vocal and determined leadership in calling for federal production incentives is exactly what the entertainment industry needs.”
Trump wasn’t the only MAGA-man that Astin and Crabtree-Ireland poured praise on: “SAG-AFTRA member Jon Voight has also been a strong advocate for bringing more film and television production back to the United States, and we recognize his efforts to advance this important goal. We’re encouraged to see the administration recognize the importance of strengthening our domestic production industry and move in this direction.”
Back in Washington, D.C., Schiff, one of Hollywood’s leading political advocates, has been busy despite longtime animosity with Trump.
A spokesperson for Schiff, the onetime Burbank congressman, said today: “The Senator has continued to be in bipartisan conversations in the last couple of weeks with a range of players, including House members, his Senate Republican colleagues, those with a direct line of communication to the president and the White House, and industry stakeholders such as labor leaders, and studio representatives. The Senator believes it will take a broad bipartisan coalition to get this across the finish line.”
Advocating for a stackable national entertainment industry tax incentive that would work with already existing state credits like California’s $750 million annual program, Schiff has publicly spoken of a federal plan in the 15%-20% range.
Voight got a visual thumbs up from IATSE too, with the Enemy of the State star seen in a photo with union chief Matt Loeb and others that accompanied the union’s statement today on the potential incentive scheme.
The union, with nearly 180,000 entertainment industry members, made sure to give Trump some love too: “IATSE welcomes President Donald Trump’s public endorsement of a federal film and television production incentive and is encouraged to see growing support for a policy the union has championed for years, Tuesday.”
Nodding to the more than 45,000 film and TV jobs lost in Los Angeles alone over the past five years and the scores of productions that have headed for the incentive-rich UK, Canada and Eastern Europe in the past decade, the union added: “IATSE was the first labor group in the United States to call for a federal incentive to strengthen domestic film and television production. The union has long believed a federal incentive is an necessary tool to level the playing field with countries that have aggressively attracted production through generous, and often permanent incentive programs.”
Again, with that term “bipartisan” utilized, IATSE concluded its statement by stressing it is “actively engaged with a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers in Congress to draft, introduce, and pass federal incentive legislation as quickly as possible to return and maintain film jobs in America.”
Onetime L.A. mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt also got in the incentives game with a post (or two) of his own Tuesday. “I can confirm this is indeed a bipartisan front,” The Hills veteran wrote. “I’ve had very heartening conversations with both the President’s biggest supporters and detractors in Congress, and they are all very much eager to join with him to get this done. Cinema unifies us in ways nothing else can.”
Pratt, who took potshots at Newsom and California Attorney General Rob Bonta today and praised Tom Cruise, has been on the incentives bandwagon for a month now after sitting down (and posting about it) with Trump the last time POTUS was in the state.
In fact, it was Pratt who offered the most specific indication of where Trump’s head may be about incentives for Hollywood.
“Working with the President on a 25% FEDERAL film tax credit to bring back Hollywood,” Pratt posted on August 4, featuring a photo of himself and Trump at Trump National Golf Club in Rancho Palos Verdes.
