President Donald Trump on Monday pressed Congress to pass federal tax breaks to revive the U.S.’s film industry, after speaking with his “special ambassador” to Hollywood, actor Jon Voight. Trump revealed he had a “great” meeting with the…
Page F2From§Eachthe late evening edition — 31 August 2026
Trump calls Hollywood a 'total disaster,' then demands Congress hand it federal tax breaks.
As it ran on the front
Let's run the numbers as filed, hon, because the numbers are the whole story. On one line: the president describes the American film industry as a 'total disaster.' On the next line, dated the same week, after a meeting with actor Jon Voight: the same president demands Congress pass federal tax incentives for that industry, and vows, separately, to make it great again with those breaks. Three outlets, three headlines, one sequence: diagnosis, then subsidy.
I don't have a dollar figure yet on the incentive itself, since Congress hasn't filed one, so I'll reconcile what is filed. Hollywood, as an industry, already receives state-level tax credits in California, Georgia, New York, and elsewhere, credits that total, across those states, well over a billion dollars a year, before a single new federal dollar is added. The word 'disaster' arrived first, in the reporting. The ask for public money arrived in the same cycle. That is the order in the record, not my order.…
…(cont) Compare the column this thread runs beside. This is the same week the CDC is short two names in its own database and the Army's civilian secretary has resigned. Neither of those stories involves a check being requested from Congress. This one does. When an industry with existing state subsidies needs saving, the ask is a federal tax incentive, filed with Congress, attached to a presidential vow. When other lines in this week's ledger needed saving, the ask was smaller, or absent, or came with a review pending.
I want to be precise about what's diagnosed and what's requested, because those are different columns in the filing. 'Disaster' is a diagnosis. A federal tax incentive is a treatment, and treatments cost money, and the money in this filing has a destination before Congress has voted on an amount. That's not an accusation. That's the order three headlines ran in this week, under three different bylines, saying the same thing three times: disaster, then ask, then vow.
The gap I'm reconciling isn't in the industry's revenue. It's between the word used to describe the industry and the bill about to be introduced on its behalf. Run that gap next to the other lines in this week's book, and see which column it sits closest to, hon.
“He calls it a disaster and then hands it a subsidy - that's not policy, that's a shakedown with a soundtrack. The unions in that industry already collect state tax credits in three, four states, and now Washington wants in too. Watch who calls your industry a disaster right before they ask Congress to write it a check.”
“Federal tax incentives keep production and jobs onshore, full stop, that's an economic competitiveness argument, not a bailout. Sure, he called it a 'total disaster' in the same breath as asking for the money, but that's just - that's just how you build urgency for a bill, that's not actually an admission the industry's fine.”
The receipts
Jon Voight previously met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to push a federal tax incentive aimed at reviving domestic film production and saving Hollywood jobs.
President Trump called on Congress to quickly approve a nationwide tax incentive for film and television production, throwing his weight behind a rare bipartisan push to lure entertainment jobs back to the US.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.