How Trump is trying to help Hollywood

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Republicans are fighting for their midterm lives, so it’s something to watch the president finally rally them together with a plan to lock down the Hollywood academy and California’s liberal political class.

And the Oscar for Most Self-Defeating Politics goes to . . .

“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. Congress should approve, immediately, a Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America,” Donald Trump enthused on Truth Social Monday. This was followed by a Tuesday post praising the “great bipartisan response” to his great Hollywood bailout, then by yet another, of the president thumbs-upping it with his Hollywood ambassador, Jon Voight.

Feel better, voters. As gas prices rise, the president has George Clooney, Jeff Katzenberg, Sen. Adam Schiff and Gov. Gavin Newsom, covered.

The congressional response to adding billions in Hollywood subsidies to $40 trillion in debt was notable, if not “great.” Republicans—unable to pass capital-gains relief for homeowners or basic online safety legislation, or even to fund the military—finally found an oppressed class worth uniting for: studio barons and megastars. “Whatever we can do to be supportive is a good thing,” Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan saluted, taking a break from deficit laments. Plans are already afoot to drive a bill through the House Ways and Means Committee. Expect the topic to be central at next week’s GOP “midterm convention” in Texas. The implicit Republican 2026 message: Make Mark Ruffalo Great Again.

Democrats hear Christmas bells. The California delegation (85% Democrats) has made a cause of this bailout, and Mr. Schiff held a hearing on the proposal in March. The California senator—who as a representative led the charge to impeach the president twice—proposes Republicans and Democrats “work together . . . to get this done, and bring the movie magic back to America.” Mr. Newsom, who last year proposed a $7.5 billion federal tax credit, abandoned his previously scheduled Trump trolling and on Monday gold-stamped the president’s plan with: “Amen. Let’s make it happen.” It’s “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” D.C.-spending style.

On the merits, the proposal is dreadful. Yes, the U.S. has seen a big drop in domestic movie production, partly a function of a global industry’s adjusting to streaming services and falling ticket sales. The issue is cost. And no surprise California has led the way in shedding slots. Of the estimated 100,000 industry jobs nationwide lost since 2022, the biggest chunk dropped from the Los Angeles area. What movie-maker is eager to engage in a state with onerous “above the line” taxes, insane regulations, and actor and writer guilds that strike with the regularity of the ticking clock in “High Noon”? It isn’t a trick question.

One solution—the one that ignores underlying economic reality, but makes politicians look proactive—is to join in the global subsidy race to the bottom, trying to lure production back with more giveaways at taxpayer expense. The president’s claim that “money spent on Tax Incentives will be made up tenfold by the money pouring into the Treasury’s coffers” is fantasy. California last year doubled its own film credit, and here we are. The other solution—less politically fun, lacking in spending gratification—is to demand California save its own industry, and its broader self, by reversing policies that are driving a “Ten Commandments”-style exodus from its state.

But it’s the politics that are most self-sabotaging. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows the single top issue this midterm for a plurality of Americans is the cost of living, and that 71% of respondents disapprove of Mr. Trump’s handling of that problem. The country wants Republicans to provide them concrete wins on live issues: gasoline prices, inflation, taxes. Yet polls show the party’s message, which now hinges on the year-ago accomplishment of a reconciliation bill—isn’t landing. That’s in part because the main messenger keeps bouncing from threats against Iran to vaccine plot theory to arguments over the appropriate name for the body of water between Rochester, N.Y., and Toronto.

There is at least continuity in the White House now positioning the GOP to roar into a midterm sprint as lead advocates for the Chanel class (just as that group gears up to bash the president at the Emmys, the Grammys and the Golden Globes). It’s in keeping with the spring-through-summer obsession with other topics that blare a disconnect from average concerns, say a $400 million, 90,000-square-foot, gilded ballroom. The GOP isn’t only failing to get its message across; it’s actively making itself look oblivious. It was a similar disconnect that helped Democrats lose in 2024.

Mr. Trump has pledged to spend the final 30 days before the election stumping for the GOP. He can use those stops to reassure voters that Republicans will improve their day-to-day lives—or he can pledge to spend their money on Tinsel Town. Those messages don’t go together.

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