Hollywood Has An Unlikely Ally In Its Push To Win Over Trump

LOS ANGELES — I went looking for Jon Voight at the Beverly Glen Deli, a strip-mall outpost atop Bel Air, the old-money enclave that unspools down the hillside like a film reel.

Inside, nannies lunched alongside their nine-year-old charges — and live-in nurses with their 90-year-old ones.

I’d tried for months to interview Voight, President Donald Trump’s “special ambassador” to the entertainment industry. Tapped a year earlier to “Make Hollywood Great Again,” the actor has focused on developing a federal film tax incentive meant to level the global playing field after a decades-long exodus of production overseas. Members of Congress are actively working on legislation that could be introduced as soon as September, according to two people familiar with the bipartisan process who were granted anonymity to discuss private deliberations.

Amid a summer of Hollywood conniptions and crises — much of it over Paramount Skydance’s prospective acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, but at least some of it over runaway production — the “Heat” and “Ali” actor’s brief seemed more urgent than ever. And I wasn’t the only one looking for Voight. Across Los Angeles, entertainment insiders have been asking one another for weeks what the Oscar winner for “Coming Home” was up to — and whether he could deliver. They are counting on him, despite the uncomfortable incongruity for many in deep-blue Hollywood that Voight, an avowed Trump loyalist dating back a decade, has been cast as the industry’s hoped-for savior. Infamously estranged from daughter Angelina Jolie, Voight has falsely claimed that Trump won the 2020 presidential election and called it a “battle of righteousness versus Satan.”

“Adversity makes strange bedfellows,” said Elizabeth Ashford, a Democratic political consultant who has worked for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Kamala Harris, adding that she did not agree with Voight’s politics. “He is not necessarily the superhero that Hollywood would have written into its own script. But if he helps save the day, then that's the only superhero you need.”

Yet, in recent months, Voight, 87, has said little, if anything — at least publicly — about the production-incentive push. Including to me.

His spokesperson denied interview requests in May and August. Then a source told me that the actor was a regular at the Beverly Glen Deli, a hangout for the likes of Kendall Jenner, Gene Simmons and Lisa Rinna.

Reflecting on the scene, the person said, “It’s like a B-list version of ‘Our Town.’”

The drive for a federal production incentive traces its roots to at least the early 2000s, when lawmakers began proposing tax rebates to combat the industry’s emerging runaway-production problem. At the time, films and TV shoots were beginning to move to locales such as Canada, lured by lower costs that were partly the result of favorable exchange rates. In 2004, Congress created a tax deduction for certain film and television productions, but it was not a full-scale incentive, and it expired at the end of 2025.

“What incentives have taught the world is to create Hollywood-style movies with their own actors, with their own stories — but they look like they were made in Hollywood,” said Joseph Chianese, a senior vice president at Entertainment Partners, where he advises companies on production incentives. “So there’s less and less and less of a need for our product … and we're seeing a decline.”

Even Mel Gibson — another of Trump’s special ambassadors to Hollywood — recently chose to film his forthcoming two-part sequel to “The Passion of the Christ” in Italy, where it is in line to tap the country’s rich production incentives. Last year, Gibson told Fox News that it was less expensive, for one movie, to fly the entire crew to Europe, house them and shoot for three days than to film for a single day in Los Angeles. This was, he argued, a sign that “there’s something really wrong” with the economics of U.S. film production.

Enter Voight, who was tapped by Trump in January 2025 for what the president called a mission to bring back Hollywood “BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

A few months later, Voight told Variety that he was working to ensure Hollywood wouldn’t “go down the drain like Detroit.”

“Every studio has a lot of smart people, and they have maneuvered the write-offs and the gifts that are being given out throughout the world to lure people to different countries,” he said. “Now we’re saying, ‘Hey, we have to have that here.’ … We need to be competitive.”

But where is he? Voight’s choice of watering hole is decidedly a Hollywood spot. One dish on Beverly Glen Deli’s menu is named for Charlie Sheen’s former publicist, who died in 2023; and another for Ventura Boulevard, the thoroughfare that runs through Studio City. On my first visit to the deli the other day, the parking lot was swarmed with Mercedes-Benz G-Wagons.

I slid into a booth near the entrance and surveyed the room. No sign of Voight. But the Chinese chicken salad, over which an entire can of mandarin oranges appeared to have been decanted, was the taste of ’90s Los Angeles.

“I should have fallen in love two or three times — but I never did,” a neighboring diner purred into his iPhone.

Voight didn’t surface. But I got some intel: a server said the actor came in “all the time” — and had been there three days earlier. Voight, he said, doesn’t necessarily come during normal hours.

“He tries to miss the rush,” the server added.

Voight is working less these days — and in lower-profile projects than those from the era when he was an awards-season staple. None of the three films he appeared in last year, according to IMDb, received a conventional theatrical release in the U.S. They all debuted directly on home video. In 2024, he had a supporting role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Megalopolis,” a widely panned $120 million flop.

But if Voight is appearing less on screen, even Democrats acknowledge he may be one of their best hopes at shaping policy critical to the industry. In February, Voight met with stakeholders working on the federal production incentive in Washington. While he was there, the Motion Picture Association and Walt Disney Co. screened one of his films, “National Treasure,” for a group of lawmakers, entertainment executives and members of the Trump administration. Among them was Rep. Laura Friedman, the Burbank Democrat who was previously a movie producer and is taking a lead role in the effort to craft legislation that would create the incentive.

Friedman, who is working on it with a bipartisan group of roughly half a dozen other House members, told POLITICO that she had a “really productive meeting” with Voight, whom she said has “been a great ambassador” for Hollywood.

“He's got so much passion for the industry,” she said. “He understands that this is about people who build sets, people who paint backdrops, people who work in front of computers, actors, creators, and he has been a great representative for them. I sat down with him for quite a while, and then the next day he went and met with Donald Trump and had a great discussion with him. And he has really been a great bridge to the president.”

The federal production incentive that is being discussed would include a 20 percent credit for labor both in front of and behind the camera, with a mechanism requiring that the vast majority of the work would go to U.S. personnel, according to the two people with knowledge of the legislative effort.

It would also be stackable atop states’ incentives. That would make places such as California, which last year more than doubled the size of its incentive program but has still seen the loss of business, much more competitive on a global scale. Because several states with sizable production ecosystems are Republican-led — Georgia and Louisiana among them — the issue is a rare one with bipartisan appeal.

“When I talk to my Republican colleagues who are working on this, they're really happy about that,” Friedman said. “They want to show that we can all work together, that we're one nation when it comes to protecting American jobs, and it doesn't have to be partisan. I've really enjoyed that part of it too. Won't it be ironic if the thing that brings this country together is protecting jobs in Hollywood and Texas and Georgia and New Jersey?”

It’s not just Voight and the legislators: a vast coalition of parties is pursuing a federal incentive, including entertainment industry unions, talent agencies and the Motion Picture Association, the trade group representing the major film, television and streaming companies. Its CEO, Charles Rivkin, also praised the “Midnight Cowboy” actor in a statement to POLITICO, calling Voight “an incredible champion” of the federal incentive.

“He’s an unstoppable force – and together, I am confident that we will achieve a game-changing tax incentive that creates more jobs in America, telling stories made in America,” Rivkin said.

It will be striking to many in Los Angeles if Voight — and, by extension, Trump, with his regular attacks on “woke” Hollywood — end up delivering for the region. Still, the president has long sought the industry’s embrace and was part of the business for many years as the host of “The Apprentice,” and via appearances in films such as “Home Alone 2: Lost in New York.”

The president has not publicly said he supports a federal production tax credit. Amid the incentive push, however, Trump’s threats to impose tariffs on films made abroad appear to have ebbed, if not fallen by the wayside.

Asked about the federal production incentive project and Voight’s role in the effort, a spokesperson for the White House said in a statement that the president “has made clear his intention to protect the dominance of the American film industry.”

“President Trump is committed to Make Hollywood Great Again, and his administration continues to explore all possible policy options to ensure Hollywood remains a potent force of American culture,” spokesperson Kush Desai said.

Beyond Voight, Trump has his share of devotees in Hollywood, though many saw their mainstream careers crest long before the president first took office. (See: Scott Baio, Roseanne Barr, Kevin Sorbo, Dean Cain, Kelsey Grammer, Antonio Sabato Jr. and Rob Schneider.)

But if Democratic lawmakers want to make a federal production incentive a reality, they’ll need to be pragmatic — not just by working with Republicans, but perhaps by showing a continued willingness to engage with figures such as Voight who command the president’s attention. Or at least Trump’s respect and admiration.

That’s according to political consultant Matt Littman, a former speechwriter for Joe Biden. We met for lunch at the deli on Tuesday — Littman brought along his black lab puppy, Chip, who curled up beneath our two-top. Tucking into a plate of lox, eggs and onions, Littman said that if Voight “has the ear of the president and that’s important, then you need” him.

“And by the way, if somebody says Scott Baio is important, then you go get Scott Baio, right? If Antonio Sabato Jr. is important, then you go get him, too. That's just the way it goes,” said Littman, whose company HowLitt works in the nexus of politics and entertainment. “If you need these people, it doesn't matter. You work with the people you need to work with to get it done … You do not have to agree on every issue to agree on an issue.”

On this day, Beverly Glen Deli was thronged. But there was no sign of Voight, who in 2024 was reported to be moving out of his longtime home in the Beverly Hills area. Discussing runaway production — which has become an existential threat for many in LA’s entertainment economy — Littman grew contemplative.

“I can tell when people aren't working based on whether their lawns are mowed or not. If they're not working, their lawns are not mowed,” he said. “I see too much of it around town. My own neighbors. We don't like that. We want that business back.”

The creation of a federal production incentive is far from assured. And one prominent lawmaker involved in the effort could be an issue for Trump: Adam Schiff.

The California senator and the president have clashed for years — at least since Schiff served as the lead House manager in Trump’s first impeachment — and his participation could complicate the process. It’s something Schiff acknowledged, at least obliquely, on The Town podcast in March, when he said, “I’m not inside those conversations,” referencing talks Trump was having with the Motion Picture Association and others about the federal incentive, before adding, “And it’s probably better that I’m not.”

“I made it clear to everybody in the industry, I don’t care whose name is on this, let’s just get it done,” he said at the time.

In a statement to POLITICO, Schiff said that he’s “been intently focused on enacting a federal film tax incentive to bring back the jobs we’ve lost to foreign countries who’ve made investments in this sector while the United States has fallen short.” A spokesperson for the senator said he has “continued to be in conversations in the last couple of weeks with a range of players, including House members and those with a direct line of communication to the president and the White House.”

The White House did not respond to a question about Schiff’s involvement in the project.

As for Voight, he is aided in his efforts by two consiglieri: his manager, Steven Paul, and producer Scott Karol. Maybe I’d run into them noshing alongside Voight.

On Wednesday, I made another visit to the Beverly Glen Deli, where I was joined by Ashford, the Democratic political consultant. We settled into a booth with an expansive view of an extremely Voight-less room. She considered, over half a pastrami sandwich, how the actor had come to be at the center of such a potentially consequential endeavor. “While to many Jon Voight might not seem like a natural choice for this job,” she said, “he’s actually a great choice to reach Trump. In any political situation where you want to get something done, you want to send in emissaries and surrogates that are going to appeal to the person on the other side of the table. It would be very strange to send in Mark Ruffalo to advocate on behalf of this.”

I had struck out three times. But there was one last thing I had to try on Friday: Voight’s “usual” order at the deli. According to a 2015 profile, it was “a plate of steamed broccoli, turkey bacon and an English muffin, with eggs over medium.” Perhaps it could conjure the actor?

But the riot of green and burnished brown could not. After this fourth and final failure, I thought about my first visit to Beverly Glen Deli eight days earlier.

Two middle-aged men sat at a nearby booth discussing a script that one of them had apparently written. The man who had seemingly penned it told a long story about someone named Chaz. His companion, who wore black-rimmed Lew Wasserman-style frames, nodded knowingly.

The writer wanted the man in the glasses’ advice. In this business, maybe something more substantial, too.

This elbows-on-the-table schmooze felt like a glimpse of a Hollywood that’s already endangered. One that could soon become a thing of the past.

Not if Jon Voight has anything to say about it.

Or so I am told.