President Trump met Jon Voight at the White House on Friday and, with the actor still in the room, took to Truth Social to demand that Congress pass a federal film and TV tax incentive in the lame-duck session — "GET THIS DONE!" — and Democratic Senator Adam Schiff, of all people, answered that he agrees: it is time for Congress to pass it.
Why it matters: for years, film and television productions have been packing up and leaving America for countries that offer bigger tax breaks, and the jobs go with them — camera crews, builders, drivers, caterers, thousands of working people on every production. The bill Voight was selling would hand productions a rebate of 20 to 30 percent on what they spend on American labour, a direct reason to shoot in the United States instead of Canada, Britain or Australia. That is the whole fight: whether the next generation of movies and shows gets made by American workers or foreign ones.
The president put his own words on it while the meeting was still going. "Meetings are being set up, routinely, with the Leaders of both Parties in order to, GET THIS DONE!" he wrote, calling it "a very Bipartisan undertaking, especially in that so much of the money being lost to other countries is coming out of the Blue States," and noting that he was working with Senator Adam Schiff — "believe it or not." His rapid-response team carried the post to X the same evening:
The scene inside the room was pure Trump-era Washington. Voight arrived with his producing partner Steven Paul and Scott Karol, and made what Paul called an Academy Award-winning speech for the incentive — "He was crying by the end of the meeting" — while, at the same time, the president was being updated on two emergencies: the nationwide flight ground stop and the capsized riverboat in New Orleans. "He gave us attention while taking care of two emergencies," Karol said. Voight serves as Trump's ambassador to Hollywood and has pressed him on this tax credit several times; Friday, he got his answer before he had even left the building.
Schiff's side of the bargain was already set before the meeting: Voight's team had sat with the senator earlier in the day, and Schiff sent word to the president through them — "This is Tim Scott's bill and I'm there to help," naming the Republican senator whose bill carries the incentive. When Trump's post landed, Schiff answered in public, saying the bill should not wait until the Democrats take over in January:
Democratic Representative Laura Friedman, a co-author of the push, piled in behind him: "When the White House and this many members of both parties agree, there's no excuse to wait. A national film and TV incentive means jobs in California, Georgia, New York, New Jersey and every state across the country. Let's get it done."
The other side is not about the idea — it is about the calendar. Politico reported the same day that Hollywood's tax credit push is running into a post-midterm wall, and Democratic Representative Don Beyer put the chances of passing any tax bill in the lame-duck session at "pretty low." Karol conceded the real fight: the incentive needs a piece of legislation big enough to ride on before Congress goes home. But he said the momentum has not slowed since the Republicans' defeat in last week's midterms — "There's good energy on both sides."
The situation now: the president has ordered both parties' leaders into meetings, the bill's Republican author and its Democratic helpers are aligned in public, and the only question left is the one Beyer raised — whether a lame-duck Congress, in its last weeks, can find the vehicle and the votes. If it can, the productions that have been leaving start coming home; if it cannot, the fight rolls into January with the strangest alliance in Washington — Trump and Schiff — already on the record together.
📰 ProfiloPolitics Member News — choose your news, share it, earn credit:
https://white-curlew-963569.hostingersite.com
Never miss a story — Join our Telegram channel
Breaking U.S. political news, live as it happens — plus the stories the big outlets sit on.
Join ProfiloPolitics on Telegram