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 F5From§Eachthe milkman edition — 1 September 2026
White House touts pharma deal as fixing drug prices, cuts none, then demands a Hollywood tax break.
As it ran on the front
Let's run the numbers as filed. In August, the White House announced a pharmaceutical pricing deal and described it as a fix for the cost of prescription drugs. The deal produced no price reduction in the public record before us. Zero. That is the reconciled figure: promised fix, delivered reduction, zero dollars, zero cents.
That same stretch of calendar, the President met with actor Jon Voight, called the American film industry a 'total disaster,' and asked Congress for a federal tax incentive to fix it. Then he asked again. Then a third time, on a different outlet, using the phrase 'make Hollywood great again,' which is a marketing line, not a budget line, but it is the line that shows up beside the ask.…
…(cont) So here is what reconciles and what does not. The claim was: we solved your drug prices. The ledger says: no line item for that. The claim was: Hollywood is a disaster. The ledger says: here is a proposed new federal tax credit for it. One industry got a press conference. The other got a credit. Neither industry is named 'the public,' hon, and the public is the one holding the prescription.
This office does not allege motive. This office runs the filing against the announcement. The filing shows a pharmaceutical deal with a communications rollout and no attached price schedule. The filing shows a film-tax proposal with three separate public restatements of demand in under two weeks. When a policy has more press appearances than line items, that is not a scandal, that is a pattern, and patterns are the only thing a reconciliation is built to find.
Ask where the money goes and the answer is always available if you know which drawer to open. The drawer marked 'drug prices' is, per the record before us, empty. The drawer marked 'film incentive' has a bill number attached and an industry veteran's name on the visitor log. Both drawers are in the same building. Only one of them is getting funded this quarter, and it is not the one with your co-pay in it.
“They can't cut your insulin price but they found time for a third Hollywood tax break pitch in two weeks — notice which ask gets repeated until it passes. The pharma deal got a press release; your copay didn't get a number. Follow the ask, not the announcement.”
“The pharma deal is a genuine step toward lower costs, negotiations like this take time to show up at the pharmacy counter — okay, they haven't shown up at the pharmacy counter yet, but the tax incentive for film is a jobs program, not a — it's a jobs program.”
The receipts
US President Donald Trump on Monday announced nine more agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers intended to lower prescription drug prices nationwide, bringing the total to 26, but patient advocates responded skeptically. The…
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.
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.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.