President Donald Trump has no reason to reward a hostile Hollywood with federal tax credits — while leaving the industry’s underlying problems in California intact.

The California Post reported over the weekend that former LA mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt recently met privately with President Donald Trump. His pitch: A 25% federal film-production tax credit to “bring back Hollywood.”

Pratt is not alone. Jon Voight, one of Trump’s special ambassadors to Hollywood, has promoted a federal production credit as part of a broader industry-revival plan. Sylvester Stallone has joined entertainment unions, studios and trade organizations urging the same.

They face a political problem before they ever reach the policy debate. Trump has a long memory, and Hollywood spent the past decade trying to keep him out of the Oval Office, then denouncing him once he got there anyway.

Robert De Niro called Trump “a punk,” “a dog,” “a pig” and “a con.” George Clooney branded him a “xenophobic fascist.” Tom Hanks dismissed him as a “simplistic, self-involved gasbag.”

Ron Howard described him as a “self-serving, dishonest, morally bankrupt ego maniac.” Arnold Schwarzenegger declared Trump would be remembered as the “worst president ever.” Harrison Ford recently said Trump “scares the s— out of me” and called him history’s greatest criminal.

Those are only a few examples. For years, the Oscars, Golden Globes, Emmys and SAG Awards doubled as venues for mocking Trump and lecturing his supporters. Anti-Trump politics became part of Hollywood’s institutional culture, not an occasional protest tied to one election.

The industry also put serious money behind Trump’s opponents in all three presidential campaigns.

In 2016, George Clooney hosted major fundraisers for Hillary Clinton, with Jeffrey Katzenberg, Steven Spielberg and Haim Saban among the co-hosts. The events generated an estimated $15 million.

In 2020, Clooney and Katzenberg raised $7 million for Joe Biden. A separate Saban event brought in $4.5 million more.

In 2024, Clooney, Julia Roberts, Barbra Streisand, Jimmy Kimmel and Katzenberg staged a gala that raised over $30 million for Biden. After the Democrats swapped in Kamala Harris, a fundraiser featuring Stevie Wonder, Jessica Alba and Lily Tomlin brought in another $28 million.

Hollywood remains entitled to equal treatment under the law. Its politics alone do not settle the tax-credit question. But the industry is asking a president it spent a decade attacking to approve a stand-alone federal subsidy, stacked on top of California’s own credits, for a business hardly starved for capital.

That is the politics. The policy case is the bigger problem, and it fails on its own terms.

Calling it a “tax credit” makes it sound less like spending. But if the credit is refundable and exceeds a company’s tax liability, Washington writes a check for the difference.

A 25% federal credit would stack atop state subsidies that already reach 35% to 40% in California. Taxpayers would cover expenses studios have always paid themselves. Backers will count entire production budgets as “economic impact,” although much of that work would happen anyway. Paying a company for something it already planned to do creates a windfall, not a job.

California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office found no compelling evidence that the state’s film credit grows the economy after accounting for lost revenue and displaced activity.

The largest studios, with the deepest lobbying benches, will be best positioned to capture the benefit. Smaller producers will fight over whatever remains. Studios keep the profits when a production succeeds; taxpayers absorb part of the cost either way.

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Nor would the credit solve Hollywood’s larger problems: streaming upheaval, labor disruption and foreign competition. California has made the math worse through high taxes, costly energy and heavy statewide regulation, along with permitting headaches and public disorder in Los Angeles. Producers can read a spreadsheet. Sacramento’s answer is to pay favored companies to tolerate costs it should lower for everyone.

A federal credit would leave California’s competitiveness problem intact while making the rest of the country underwrite it. Lower taxes and lighter regulation for every business would do more than another carveout for a connected industry.

Hollywood had every right to campaign against Trump. But it used its cultural reach and financial machinery against him in three straight campaigns, mocking him from awards stages, insulting him in interviews and raising tens of millions for Clinton, Biden and Harris. Now it wants his signature on a subsidy of its own, making the current ask a harder sell than its backers seem to appreciate.

The federal tax code already contains too many special provisions secured by industries with powerful lobbying operations. A private meeting and a glossy economic-impact projection are not reasons to add another.

The answer should be simple: No federal Hollywood tax credit. Let Hollywood compete, and let California fix what California broke.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com.