Sen. Adam Schiff, the California Democrat who once led the first impeachment against President Trump, now says he is "in strong agreement with the President" on a federal film tax incentive, a rare bipartisan alignment driven by the loss of 49,000 entertainment jobs since 2022.
Trump posted on Truth Social calling on Congress to approve what he termed a "Federal Production Incentive" after meeting with actor and U.S. special ambassador to Hollywood Jon Voight. Schiff followed with his own post on X, urging lawmakers from both parties to act immediately. The two men have spent years as bitter adversaries. That they now share a public position on anything, let alone Hollywood economics, tells you how dire the situation has become for California's signature industry.
The entertainment sector has shed 49,000 jobs since 2022, Fox News Digital reported, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The COVID-19 pandemic and the burst of the streaming bubble both contributed to the collapse. But the deeper problem is structural: other states and other countries simply offer better deals to lure productions away from California.
Georgia now allocates more than $1 billion in tax breaks for film and television productions. New York offers roughly $800 million. Canada and the United Kingdom have rolled out their own generous incentive packages. California, the historic capital of American entertainment, cannot keep up.
The California Legislature tried. Lawmakers voted to more than double the state's Film and Television Tax Credit Program to $750 million. But Gov. Gavin Newsom undercut the expansion by installing a $5 million state corporate tax credit cap over the next three years, a move that effectively limits what the bigger program can deliver to individual studios.
Trump put it bluntly on Truth Social:
"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!"
He followed that with a direct call to congressional leaders from both parties, urging them to "craft Legislation to save the Movie, Television, and Entertainment Business in America." The president described Hollywood as "a complete and total disaster."
Schiff has maintained a strong opposition to Trump since the president retook office. He led the first impeachment effort. He has been among the most vocal Democratic critics of the administration on nearly every front. So when Schiff posted on X that he stood with Trump on this issue, it landed as something more than routine bipartisanship.
Schiff wrote 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 added a direct appeal for cooperation:
"Let's work together, Republicans and Democrats, to get this done, and bring the movie magic back to America."
Schiff is not the only Democrat who has found himself siding with Trump in recent months. Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania has broken with his party repeatedly, and his approval among Republican voters now outpaces that of some GOP officeholders in his own state.
Trump framed the proposal as a job-creation measure with broad geographic appeal, not just a bailout for Los Angeles. He wrote that a federal production incentive "can be done quickly, accurately, efficiently and, importantly, will benefit ALL of America."
Even with bipartisan interest, the legislative calendar works against quick action. Congress has a truncated schedule in September. The entire month of October is dedicated to campaigning for midterm elections. November officially launches the lame duck session, a period when outgoing members have little incentive to take on new fights and incoming members have no vote yet.
No specific bill or legislative text has been introduced. Trump's Truth Social post and Schiff's X post amount to public pressure, not a floor vote. The details that matter most, the percentage of the credit, which productions qualify, whether the incentive has a sunset clause, remain unaddressed.
That gap between rhetoric and legislation is where proposals like this tend to stall. Democrats who have crossed party lines to support Trump on trade policy have found that agreement in principle does not always translate into votes on a finished bill.
And the broader Democratic caucus is not exactly unified right now. Some senators have broken with decades of tradition on must-pass legislation, while others have openly floated presidential bids and called on the party to stand for something beyond opposition. Whether that internal fracturing makes bipartisan film legislation easier or harder is an open question.
The irony of Schiff's position is hard to miss. California's own governor, a fellow Democrat, made the state less competitive. The Legislature passed a $750 million expansion of the Film and Television Tax Credit Program. Newsom then imposed a $5 million corporate tax credit cap that limits how much any single company can claim over the next three years. For a major studio spending hundreds of millions on a single production, a $5 million cap is a rounding error.
Georgia, by contrast, has made itself the go-to destination for big-budget productions precisely because its incentive structure is large enough to matter. More than $1 billion in annual tax breaks sends a clear signal to studios: bring your money here, and we will make it worth your while. New York's $800 million program sends the same message.
California's response has been to pass a big number and then quietly limit its reach. That is the kind of policy contradiction that drives jobs out of a state, and it is exactly the kind of failure that pushes a senator like Schiff to agree with a president he has spent years opposing.
Trump, for his part, has made the entertainment industry a visible priority. His appointment of Jon Voight as U.S. special ambassador to Hollywood signaled that the administration sees the sector as both an economic and a cultural asset worth fighting for. Voight's meeting with the president preceded the Truth Social post, and Trump credited Voight and others in the industry for suggesting the federal incentive approach.
With midterm campaigning set to consume October and the president already rallying voters in key states, the window for serious legislative work is narrow. If Congress does not move before the lame duck session, the proposal risks becoming another good idea that arrived too late in the calendar to matter.
Forty-nine thousand lost jobs have a way of clarifying priorities. When a Democrat who impeached the president and a president who called Hollywood a disaster both land on the same answer, the only question left is whether Congress will act, or whether the jobs will keep leaving while Washington talks.
