Donald Trump’s “eyes and ears” in Hollywood seem to have hand-delivered him his shocking idea to tax foreign films.

On Sunday, Trump revealed that he would be instituting a “100 percent tariff” on films produced outside of the United States.

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Other Countries are offering all sorts of incentives to draw our filmmakers and studios away from the United States. Hollywood, and many other areas within the U.S.A., are being devastated. This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.

“It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda! Therefore, I am authorizing the Department of Commerce, and the United States Trade Representative, to immediately begin the process of instituting a 100% Tariff on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands,” Trump continued. “WE WANT MOVIES MADE IN AMERICA, AGAIN!”

Days before Trump took office in January, he announced online that he’d be tapping Mel Gibson, Sylvester Stallone, and Jon Voight to be his special envoys to Hollywood, mentioning that he would “get done what they suggest” in order to spark another “Golden Age of Hollywood.”

Months later, it appears that Voight—also known as the film industry’s most ardent conservative—spoke with Trump, and Trump listened.

Voight has reportedly spent weeks talking to the Directors Guild of America, Teamsters, and IATSE, Deadline reported Friday. The fruit of those conversations, according to sources with knowledge of them who spoke to the entertainment publication, was supposed to be a tax incentive that Hollywood has been clamoring for.

Instead, Trump went the way of the tariff, which squares into an administration that has aggressively curtailed spending in order to extend extremely expensive tax breaks for billionaires.

The details of the tariff were still being sorted out by Hollywood executives as of Sunday night, reported Reuters. It’s unclear, per Trump’s post, whether the tariffs would only impact movies in the theater or if they would also apply to streaming services. It’s also unclear if the tariffs would be calculated based on production costs or box office revenue, the newswire noted. By Monday, Netflix, Disney, Paramount Global, and Fox Corp stocks went tumbling.

President Trump may have gotten his half-brained idea to reopen and expand the infamous Alcatraz prison from a movie that aired on WLRN this past weekend. 

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” the president wrote on Truth Social Sunday evening. 

“I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders,” he continued. “We will no longer be held hostage to criminals, thugs, and Judges that are afraid to do their job and allow us to remove criminals, who came into our Country illegally. The reopening of ALCATRAZ will serve as a symbol of Law, Order, and JUSTICE. We will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”  

A Bluesky user provided some more details on this seemingly random announcement. 

“I may have context for this! Last night WPBT in Palm Beach broadcast the 1979 Clint Eastwood film ‘Escape from Alcatraz,’” they wrote. Trump was in Palm Beach on the night in question. 

Trump potentially making major policy decisions based on the last movie he watched is bleak but unsurprising. Alcatraz is a dilapidated full-time museum off the coast of San Francisco that closed in the 1960s because it was too expensive to operate and many of the buildings were falling apart. Getting it back to a full-time jail would be incredibly costly and labor intensive. 

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than sixty years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction,” California Representative Nancy Pelosi wrote on X. “The President’s proposal is not a serious one.”

The Trump administration did not rule out that its pitch to replace the nation’s space launch system could massively benefit Elon Musk.

In an interview with Fox Business Friday, Office of Management and Budget Director Russel Vought refused to clarify if the “Dark MAGA” tech billionaire would be pocketing off the budget increase.

“The budget phases out the grossly expensive and delayed space launch system,” Fox Business’s Charles Payne said. “Is there a chance that Elon Musk could benefit from that?”

“Look, this is a billion-dollar investment into Mars,” said Vought, a former Project 2025 architect. “We’re doing both, we’re going back to the moon as part of the Artemis. We’ve protected exploration funding that’s open to all companies. Elon Musk hasn’t been a part of the NASA budget conversations at all. And we also provide resources for what we’re doing on Mars.”

As part of its budget proposal Friday, the Trump administration is reportedly looking to slash NASA’s budget by 24 percent year over year, amounting to the largest single-year slice to the agency in its history, with $6 billion in cuts.

The proposal spells the end of the Space Launch........

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