Sen. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who led the first impeachment against President Trump, now says he is "in strong agreement with the President" on a federal tax incentive to stop the entertainment industry's job losses.
Trump posted on Truth Social calling Hollywood "a complete and total disaster" and urging Congress to pass a federal production incentive immediately. The proposal came after a meeting with Jon Voight, the actor who serves as U.S. special ambassador to Hollywood. Within days, Schiff, one of Trump's most persistent political adversaries, posted on X endorsing the same idea, calling on both parties to act.
The unlikely alignment between the two men reflects the scale of the crisis in California's entertainment sector. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the industry has lost 49,000 jobs since 2022, a collapse driven by the post-pandemic downturn and the end of the streaming spending boom. Productions have fled to states and countries that offer far more generous tax breaks, and California's own attempts to compete have been undercut by its own governor.
Hollywood anchored American entertainment for more than a century. That dominance has eroded fast. Georgia now allocates more than $1 billion in tax breaks for film and television productions. New York offers roughly $800 million. Countries like Canada and the United Kingdom have rolled out their own generous incentive packages, pulling work out of the United States entirely.
California's state Legislature tried to respond. Lawmakers moved to more than double the state's Film & Television Tax Credit Program to $750 million, adding incentives designed to lure productions back. But Gov. Gavin Newsom installed a $5 million state corporate tax credit cap over the next three years, a move that, Fox News reported, undermined the expanded program.
So the Legislature expanded the credit. And the governor capped the benefit. The result: California still trails Georgia and New York in the competition for production dollars, and tens of thousands of workers, camera operators, set builders, electricians, caterers, have paid the price.
President Trump framed the proposal as urgent and bipartisan. On Truth Social, he wrote:
"Congress should approve, immediately, a Federal Production Incentive to create Entertainment Jobs in America. It can be done quickly, accurately, efficiently and, importantly, will benefit ALL of America."
Trump also pointed to Voight and others in the industry as driving the push. He posted:
"There is no incentive to be there, and it is hurting California very badly. Jon, and many others in the Industry, are suggesting we do Federal Tax Incentives in order to Make our Movie and Television Production Business GREAT AGAIN, perhaps GREATER THAN EVER BEFORE!"
Trump urged both Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress to craft legislation to, in his words, "save the Movie, Television, and Entertainment Business in America." The call went to leaders on both sides of the aisle, a signal that the White House sees the issue as one where bipartisan support is achievable.
Schiff's response was unequivocal. The senator who led the first impeachment effort against Trump and has maintained fierce opposition to him since Trump returned to office posted on X:
"I am in strong agreement with the President. 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."
He followed up: "Let's work together, Republicans and Democrats, to get this done, and bring the movie magic back to America."
Schiff represents California. The entertainment industry's collapse hits his constituents directly, the grips, the sound engineers, the post-production editors who built careers in an ecosystem that no longer offers enough work. For Schiff, backing Trump on this issue is less a philosophical conversion than a political necessity. When 49,000 jobs vanish from your home state, ideology takes a back seat to arithmetic.
Even with apparent bipartisan interest, the legislative calendar works against quick action. Congress faces a truncated schedule. October is dedicated entirely to midterm election campaigning, and the lame duck session does not officially launch until November. That leaves September as the only realistic month for substantive legislative work before the political calendar swallows everything else.
No specific bill or bill number has emerged. No Republican congressional leader has publicly responded to Trump's call. The proposal exists, for now, as a social media post and a statement of intent, not a piece of legislation with a sponsor, a committee hearing, or a vote count.
That gap between proposal and action matters. Federal tax incentives for film production would represent a significant policy shift. Designing the credit structure, setting eligibility rules, determining whether the incentive is refundable or transferable, and estimating the fiscal impact all take time, time that the congressional calendar may not provide before members scatter to campaign.
California's predicament is partly self-inflicted. The state Legislature recognized the competitive problem and acted, expanding the film tax credit program to $750 million. But Newsom's $5 million corporate tax credit cap over three years effectively neutralized much of that expansion for larger productions, exactly the kind of big-budget work that creates the most jobs.
Georgia did not cap its program. Neither did New York. Neither did Canada or the United Kingdom. The productions followed the money, and the money led out of California.
The 49,000 jobs lost since 2022 are not abstractions. They represent real workers in a real industry that once defined California's economy and global brand. When a state's own governor undermines the Legislature's attempt to stay competitive, the federal government stepping in starts to look less like overreach and more like a rescue.
Trump and Schiff agreeing on anything is unusual enough to qualify as news on its own. But the substance of their agreement matters more than the optics. American entertainment production is bleeding out. Other states and other countries are winning the competition for jobs and investment because they offer straightforward financial incentives that California, hobbled by its own internal contradictions, cannot match.
A federal production incentive would level the playing field across states and make the United States more competitive against foreign alternatives. Whether Congress can move fast enough to pass one before the midterm campaign consumes all available oxygen remains an open question.
When a president's fiercest political opponent agrees with him publicly and without qualification, it usually means the problem has gotten too big for partisanship to paper over. Forty-nine thousand lost jobs will do that.
