Trump calls for federal tax incentives to benefit TV and movie industry

President Donald Trump on Monday called for bipartisan tax incentives to help a domestic TV and movie industry that has seen large chunks of its business move overseas in recent years.

Trump wrote on Truth Social that meetings were “being set up with the Leaders of both Parties in order to get this done.”

“It should be Bipartisan, especially since so much money is being lost in California, and other largely Blue States,” he wrote. “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.”

Trump indicated that his call to help Hollywood — an industry that Republicans often rail against and one that resides in solidly blue California — was influenced in part by actor Jon Voight, who was a 2024 campaign surrogate for him.

Voight, whom Trump has called his “Hollywood ambassador,” has helped shape Trump’s policy toward the entertainment industry during his second term. In May 2025, Trump met with Voight before he proposed tariffs on films produced overseas.

Voight did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday night.

Trump’s Truth Social post drew immediate support from Democrats who are usually critical of him and his administration’s policies.

Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., a frequent Trump target, said he was in “strong agreement” with Trump on this one.

“Congress should immediately take up and pass a federal film tax incentive to bring back these good-paying jobs that we’ve lost to other countries,” Schiff wrote on X. “Let’s work together — Republicans and Democrats — to get this done, and bring the movie magic back to America.”

Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., praised the proposed measure and called for swift passage.

“For more than a year I’ve been sitting down with Jon Voight, Congressional colleagues, the unions, studios, and producers to build the case for a national film and television tax credit,” Friedman said in a statement. “There’s no reason Canada, the UK, or Australia should be taking our jobs. We still have the best crews on the planet. It’s time we made it possible for them to stay where they belong: in America.”

Friedman said last September that the proposed tariffs on foreign films were recognition from Trump that the U.S. was losing its domestic film and TV industry but that the path forward was a tax credit, not tariffs.

Trump’s announcement Monday was also embraced by the industry itself.

Charles Rivkin, the CEO of the Motion Picture Association, the trade group representing major film studios in the U.S., said in a statement that the group applauded Trump’s support for tax incentives.

“For over a century, American studios, casts, and crews have produced the films and series that the world wants to see. A federal incentive would be a landmark step toward bringing more production to local communities in all 50 states, strengthening our nation’s economy, and making our country a more competitive place to produce, create, and tell great stories,” Rivkin said in his statement.

While Trump did not lay out any financial details in his post, he predicted that the money spent on the tax incentives “will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers.”

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