Tag: Deadline News

UPDATED with more details: A bipartisan group of lawmakers officially introduced legislation Thursday to create a 20% federal film and TV incentive, a first-of-its-kind tax credit designed to lure production back to the United States.

The Motion Picture, Television, and Entertainment Revitalization Act would apply to compensation paid directly related to a production, excluding residuals. It also would create additional incentive “uplifts” of 5% for productions in opportunity zones or federally declared rural disaster areas. Other sweeteners are being proposed for productions across 10 or more states, as well as for producers of independent productions and for those who increase their domestic production “relative to a historical foreign base amount.”

Click here to read the proposed federal film and TV incentive bill.

Even though industry boosters have called for such an incentive for years, the prospects for the proposal gained new momentum late last month when President Donald Trump endorsed such legislation.

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The co-sponsors of the incentive include Sens. Tim Scott (R-SC) and Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Reps. Linda Sanchez (D-CA), Rep. Brian Jack (R-GA), Rep. Nathaniel Moran (R-TX) and Rep. Laura Friedman (D-CA). Other backers include Rep. Judy Chu (D-CA), Rep. David Kustoff (R-TN), Rep. Mike Carey (R-OH) and Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-NY).

The productions eligible for the credit include film and TV productions where the total cost exceeds $1 million and where 75% of the production is in the U.S. There also are provisions for post-production and visual effects. Excluded are news, live sports, talk shows, daytime dramas, social media content, advertising and corporate videos.

The credits also can be transferred to another taxpayer, a key point for producers and studios. The authors also say that the credits can supplement state incentives, something Schiff has said will help U.S. incentives compete with those in other countries.

RELATED: Federal Film & TV Tax Credits Not A Done Deal, Adam Schiff Says; White House Involved: “Negotiations Are Ongoing”

There still are challenges ahead, even with the backing of the president and members of both parties. The House already is in recess through the midterms, and the Senate is about to adjourn soon. The hope now is to attempt to pass legislation during the lame duck session at the end of the year, perhaps by attaching it to a major funding bill, Schiff said in a call with reporters Thursday.

“So much of the film industry, in particular, have moved overseas because the United States has simply not been willing or able to match the tax incentives,” Schiff said. “States have tried, and California has certainly tried, but can’t on its own make up for the very substantial incentives overseas.”

The bill has created some unusual alliances. Schiff said he worked with the White House on the legislation and credited Trump with generating the momentum for the long-in-the-works proposal for such an incentive. He also said that he worked with Jon Voight, who is serving as Trump’s “ambassador to Hollywood,” and Spencer Pratt, the reality star who ran for Los Angeles mayor earlier this year.

RELATED: Jon Voight Has A Plan To Save Hollywood: Will Trump Or Anyone Else Care?

The Wall Street Journal editorial page already has weighed in against the idea of film incentives, deeming them “handouts” to Hollywood. But backers of the tax credits are trying to highlight broad support across the industry and across party lines, while emphasizing the benefits to below-the-line crew members.

Friedman said on the press call, “I just want to remind people that the U.S. gives incentives to a variety of industries — semiconductor chips, the energy sector, pharmaceutical research and development. When we decide that an industry is important, we are the United States, and it’s up to us to determine what industries we’re going to support and what’s going to be in our country and not be in our country. This is a signature industry for the United States, and certainly for us in Los Angeles.”

MPA chairman and CEO Charles Rivkin said in a statement that the bill was “a true gamechanger for American creators, workers, and businesses — a federal incentive that supercharges production at home, fuels jobs and growth in local communities, and makes the United States a more competitive destination for the next generation of great film and television.”

Christopher Nolan, president of the Directors Guild of America, called the bill “the most significant legislative effort in a generation to promote domestic film and television production, and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports. This moment is the cumulation of years of work by the entertainment guilds and unions, in partnership with the MPA and lawmakers from both parties.”

Schiff said that he didn’t think that the dynamics for getting the bill passed will change much depending on who wins control of Congress in the midterm, but said, “I would be more concerned, frankly, with whoever is in the majority, this getting kicked to next year.” Sanchez had talked of striking while the iron is hot, he noted, and “the iron is very hot right now. We’re all very focused on this. The president is focused on this. I wouldn’t want to see that bleed into next year.”

An Iowa judge has tossed out Donald Trump‘s lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and pollster Ann Selzer, concluding that the president and his allies “stretch both Iowa statutory and common law beyond their current bounds, turning speech that enjoys the highest category of First Amendment protection into a liability.”

Trump has sued over Selzer’s pre-election 2024 poll that showed Kamala Harris ahead by three points. As it turned out, Trump won Iowa by more than 13 points. Trump filed suit under a state consumer fraud law, and Rep. Marianne Miller-Meeks (R-IA) later joined his case as another defendant, as did former State Sen. Bradley Zaun.

Iowa District Court Judge Scott Beattie wrote in his opinion, issued on Wednesday, “Election polling is speech protected by the First Amendment, both because it involves a conversation between a pollster and a voter and because the poll itself is speech. Reporting such a poll during a presidential and congressional election year is speech about a matter of public concern, occupying the summit of the pyramid of First Amendment values. The First Amendment has its fullest and most urgent application to speech uttered during a campaign for political office.”

Trump claimed that because of the poll, his campaign devoted more resources to the state. But the judge rejected the notion that the poll was commercial speech.

The judge wrote that the lawsuit “identifies no act any Plaintiff took because of a poll. Roughly seventy-two hours separated the first publication from the close of the election. Within that period, according to reporting the Petition relies upon, President Trump publicly rejected the poll as ‘a fake poll’ conducted by ‘a Trump hater’ who had ‘oversampled, by a lot, Democrats.’ A party who publicly called the poll false did not rely on it, whether or not it was fabricated.”

A spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said that the president planned to take his case to the Iowa Supreme Court “to see it through to a just and winning conclusion.”

The Des Moines Register and Gannett “knowingly ran a phony poll from the now disgraced Democrat pollster Ann Selzer in a unlawful attempt to interfere in the 2024 Presidential Election and to defraud Americans into believing Kamala Harris was winning the state of Iowa and nationwide, mere hours before she lost Iowa and the overall election by huge margins,” the spokesperson said. “This scam was designed to damage President Trump’s dominant campaign in the final days of the race.”

Selzer and the Register have denied such claims.

Bob Corn-Revere, chief counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, who led Selzer’s defense, said in a statement, “We’re pleased that the court recognized what we’ve said all along: This lawsuit was laughable from the beginning and never should have been brought. The First Amendment does not allow anyone in government, least of all the president, to punish people under the banner of ‘fake news.’”

Selzer said in a statement, “Polling is a social science, not clairvoyance, and no responsible pollster can guarantee an election outcome. What we can guarantee is that we will follow the data wherever it leads, even when the results are uncomfortable or unexpected.” She added that she was grateful that the judge’s ruling “recognizes these principles and reaffirms the fundamental freedom to pursue and publish the truth without political interference.”

UPDATED with MS Now news: Shortly after CNN said that it was denied access to cover the arrivals at the White House State Dinner for Chinese President Xi Jinping tonight, MS NOW announced that it, too, had been barred.

The news came on the same day a federal judge ordered the White House to restore hard passes to the networks’ journalists and those of and Politico.

The coverage at the North Portico was scheduled to be open to pre-credentialed media, a wider scope of reporters and photographers than the White House press pool.

CNN White House correspondent Kristen Holmes said that they were told that their credential to cover the event was only for a camera and audio, not an editorial presence. She had requested that she and her producer attend.

“Again, no editorial presence, just a camera and audio, which certainly seems like a reaction to President Trump saying that he wanted the CNN coverage of the event,” Holmes said.

The White House said on its rapid response account that it was a “pre-credentialed event,” and “contrary to what the fake news wants you the believe, they don’t just get to have free rein into every part of the White House, every event, and every press call.”

The exclusion came after U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly ordered that credentials for CNN, Politico and MS NOW be restored, ending Trump’s five-day ban of the outlets from the White House grounds.

The outlets returned to the White House around noon. Then, hours later, Trump complained that CNN and MS NOW were not covering the state visit.

Trump claimed that the networks “refused to cover one of the Biggest and Most Beautiful Events to take place in many years, the arrival at the White House of the Highly Respected President of China, Xi Jinping, and his beautiful wife, Madam Peng. The event was magnificent — Actually made for Television but, because they’re Fake News, and because they knew how good it would be, they didn’t want credit to be given to ‘TRUMP,’ they refused to be there. That’s why they have such poor Ratings. Tonight’s State Dinner at the White House, for President Xi, will be spectacular!”

In fact, network correspondents said that they were not able to get access to the White House on Thursday morning. And after the White House pulled CNN from the TV pool on Monday, the other four networks in the pool declined to replace them in the rotation. That has meant a dearth of video images from the White House, as TV pool coverage has yet to resume.

The Trump administration must restore press credentials for staffers at CNN, Politico and MS NOW, a federal judge ruled early Thursday morning, delivering a rebuke to the president’s efforts to ban the outlets from the White House grounds.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly, a Trump appointee, granted a temporary restraining order to the media outlets, after they sued Trump and other top administration officials, claiming violations of the First and Fifth amendments. The temporary order is set for a duration of 14 days. Generally, such orders are given to allow the court to consider a case more thoroughly.

“None of Defendants’ arguments convince the Court that Plaintiffs are not likely to succeed on their due process claim,” Kelly wrote in his order.

Trump has previously sought to revoke the credentials of individual reporters, but his latest ban was a sweeping effort to punish the media for negative reporting on him. Although the government later claimed national security concerns, attorneys for the outlets said that was a post-ban rationalization, violating their due process rights.

“Defendants offer little to back up their asserted national security interest to justify revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes,” the judge wrote. “So this interest does not tilt these factors in their favor, especially given that Plaintiffs have shown a likelihood of success on the merits.”

In a hearing on Wednesday, the DOJ pointed to letters sent to the media outlets outlining the reasons for the revocations, and giving them until Friday to challenge the action. But the letters were sent on Tuesday, four days after correspondents were first denied access.

The judge added that “nothing in the record that predates this suit suggests that the revocation of Plaintiffs’ hard passes was motivated by national security concerns. Certainly, that is not what President Trump said when he announced that he was ‘banning’ Plaintiffs from the White House—instead, he focused on the alleged lack of truthfulness and negativity of Plaintiffs’ reporting.”

The judge wrote that “even the justifications provided to Plaintiffs after this case was filed are ambiguous about the true purpose of the revocations: while Defendants’ letters to Plaintiffs mention national security concerns, they purport to identify reporting that ‘threatened national security and/or spread falsehoods’ leaving open the possibility that all the stories fall into the later bucket, rather than the former.”

Even after Wednesday’s hearing, and before the judge’s ruling, the DOJ filed an example of a story it claimed was a “violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex.” It was an MS NOW report that Trump aides considered the possibility of renaming Ford’s Theatre for the president. Although Trump denied the story and lashed out over it, it had nothing to do with national security.

Earlier today, a collection of more than four dozen media groups and news outlets urged the judge to rule to end Trump’s ban. They included Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents’ Association and 49 other media organizations. Among those signing on to the brief were the Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, the National Press Club, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News and the Dow Jones Co.

After CNN was restricted from the network TV pool rotation at the White House earlier this week, four other networks — ABC News, CBS News, NBC News and Fox News — said that they would suspend their participation in an act of solidarity.

Theodore Bourtrous Jr., lead attorney representing the networks, said in a statement, “This is a strong ruling vindicating freedom of the press, due process and the rule of law. We greatly appreciate the court’s swift action.”
Tom Tapp contributed to this report.

A collection of more than four dozen media groups and news outlets urged a federal judge to rule to end Donald Trump’s ban on CNN, Politico and MS Now from the White House grounds.

Just hours before U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly is to hold a hearing, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents’ Association and 49 other media organizations weighed in.

“The President has indicated that evictions of other news organizations will follow,” the groups stated in a proposed friend of the court brief. “The current ban – and any future bans – are intended to impair the critical work of news organizations covering the presidency if this court does not immediately intervene.”

CNN, Politico and MS Now filed suit against Trump on Monday, two days after their correspondents were denied access to the White House grounds. Trump has said that he banned the outlets because of their negative reporting, but the Justice Department claimed in a filing Tuesday that some of their stories jeopardized national security.

Among those signing on to the brief were the Associated Press, Reuters, NPR, the National Press Club, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox News and the Dow Jones Co.

In the brief, the news organizations argued that courts have recognized “what the government cannot do: The administration prohibited three news organizations from access to the entirety of the White House and its grounds due to the content of their reporting.” They added that the “protections the First Amendment affords to nonpublic forum mean that curtailing access to the White House based on viewpoint is unconstitutional.”

A federal judge said that he will rule “as soon as I can” on whether access should be restored to CNN, Politico and MS NOW after Donald Trump‘s banned them from the White House because of their coverage of him.

The three outlets are seeking a temporary restraining order to immediately lift the ban and return their credentials.

In a 45-minute hearing on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly noted at the outset that he is bound by D.C. circuit precedent that sided with journalists when it comes to White House access, including a 1977 decision in Sherrill vs. Knight and a 2020 decision in Karem vs. Trump, the latter having to do with the revocation of report Brian Karem’s credentials.

Kelly told the attorneys that, based on his reading of documents in the case, the court precedent “wasn’t followed here.”

The judge also noted that he previously presided over a CNN lawsuit against the administration after they revoked the hard pass of its then-chief White House correspondent, Jim Acosta. Kelly ruled that his pass had to be restored because he was not given notice.

The networks sued Trump on Monday, three days after he announced a ban on the outlets access to the White House grounds. The lawsuit claimed violation of the First Amendment and the Fifth Amendment right to due process. The latter issue — that networks were not given an opportunity to challenge the ban before it was implemented or even the reasons for it — dominated much of Kelly’s hearing.

Theodore Boutrous Jr., representing the networks, urged the judge to act quickly on their motion for a TRO or a preliminary injunction.

“These are urgent matters. We’re at war. We have world leaders coming to Washington,” he said, adding that “harm is irreparable. The public interest favors striking down unconstitutional acts like that.”

Michael Velchik, senior counsel at the DOJ’s civil division, representing Trump, argued that notice was given to the networks on Tuesday, citing reporting on national security that they claimed was “publishing sensitive or classified information.” Velchik urged the judge to delay a ruling until Friday, the deadline for the networks to challenge the ban.

But Boutrous dismissed the argument, telling the judge that “all of the sudden it is national security case,” noting that Trump initially cited negative coverage of him. He suggested that the DOJ was making a rationalization after the fact, noting that Trump didn’t even raise the issue of national security until after the networks filed their lawsuit.

Yet even taking the DOJ’s justification into account, Boutrous said, “They are literally arguing reporters shouldn’t scrutinize national security decisions by the government.” He also noted that the Sherrill decision prohibited content-based criteria for issuing press passes.

What’s more, the Tuesday notices to the networks didn’t just argue that the ban was due to national security. The letters to the outlets claimed “behavior in violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum,” while the letter to Politico cited as objectionable a story about Trump’s midterm convention.

Boutrous said that what Trump was objecting to was “very essence of the First Amendment. … the president said, ‘I don’t like what you’re publishing. I’m taking away your press pass based on that.’”

Earlier on Wednesday, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, the White House Correspondents’ Association and dozens of news outlets, ranging from the Associated Press to Fox News, urged the judge to issue the temporary restraining order.

UPDATED: Coming up against a deadline set by a federal judge, the Justice Department on Tuesday night defended Donald Trump’s ban on CNN, Politico and MS NOW from the White House grounds. The response comes despite an outcry across media outlets that the restriction is a flagrant violation of the First Amendment.

Leaning onto a Wednesday hearing on a temporary restraining order, the administration late Tuesday argued for Trump and top White House aides in its opposition filing that the “President’s actions are lawful under the First Amendment.”

Adding to that, and sidestepping Trump’s previous quip that there was no particular reason for the ban, the Department of Justice is now claiming that CNN, MS Now and Politico have “engaged in a number of reporting incidents that have threatened national security” over stories on the construction of Trump’s much criticized ballroom and more. Swiping at past rulings on White House access, the DOJ is also maintaining that “While the D.C. Circuit has held that some areas of the White House grounds constitute a nonpublic that decision is wrong and should be overruled.”

After Trump banned the three outlets on Friday, CNN, Politico and MS Now jointly sued the president and top staffers, claiming violations of the First and Fifth amendments.

“This ban could not be a more direct assault on the First Amendment nor a more blatant violation of our most fundamental constitutional principles,” their lawsuit stated.

Late Tuesday, the DOJ laid out POTUS’ POV.

“The White House is the home and workplace for the Nation’s Commander-in-Chief,” the 19-page document from Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate and others at the DOJ states. “Plaintiffs CNN, MSNOW, and Politico have long been granted privileged access to White House grounds. But the President concluded that they have failed to maintain basic minimum “standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex, including” by ‘publishing sensitive or classified information.’”

The DOJ also claimed that the revocation of credentials was “preliminary” and that notices were sent to the networks Tuesday. The letters, filed with the court and featuring no letterhead, gave them until Friday to contest the decision.

The letter to CNN stated, “No President has been as transparent to the public or as accessible to the press as President Trump. Nevertheless, your organization has exhibited behavior in violation of the standards of professionalism and decorum expected of those given access to the White House Complex, including by trafficking in verifiable falsehoods about national security and other issues, and publishing sensitive or classified information.”

The letter to MS Now cited, among other things, a report from a source that Trump had underestimated the “willingness of Iran to resume” the conflict with the U.S. The letter to Politico pointed to a report on the funding of the ballroom and how the Secret Service would invest in security improvements.

Some of the stories cited had nothing to do with national security.

“In September 2026, Politico Playbook relied on unnamed sources to paint the Republican midterm convention in Dallas as a disaster. Media reporting showed that the convention had over 100 million live stream views,” the letter to the outlet stated.

Among the stories cited was a CNN piece on construction details of the White House ballroom, which the Trump team contended revealed “top secret” information. Other stories cited were reports on munition supplies in the war in Iran, and that the military had exhausted nearly 80% of its interceptors.

Snapping at UN credentialed CNN reporters while in NYC on Monday, Trump has found himself out of the usual spotlight.

Shortly after the filing Monday, the five major TV networks that make up the White House TV pool said that they were suspending coverage in solidarity, leaving a void in video of Trump at the White House and other events. The pool is made up of CNN, NBC News, ABC News, CBS News and Fox News. Other outlets, like the New York Times, have protested the ban in other ways, like withholding their use of images from the White House.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly has scheduled a hearing for Wednesday afternoon on the outlets’ motion for the TRO. Trump has already signaled that he expects the judge to rule in the networks’ favor and plans an appeal. Even though he appointed the judge in his first term, Kelly sided with then-CNN correspondent Jim Acosta after the network sued the Trump administration for revoking Acosta’s hard pass in 2018.

The three outlets’ legal team, led by Theodore Boutrous Jr, bolstered their case earlier Tuesday when they noted a new D.C. Circuit decision on access to the steps of the Capitol. The judges ruled that the eastern steps of the Capitol were a “nonpublic forum” but speech regulations had to be “viewpoint neutral.”

Trump has complained about the three outlets’ coverage of him, telling reporters, “There’s something wrong with a country that can allow people to write purposely negative stories.”

Boutrous’ team also filed one of Trump’s Truth Social posts in which he said that he “sadly” appointed Kelly to the federal bench. They also filed a report on Trump’s outburst at CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, when she was among the reporters at the United Nations, asking questions of the president on Tuesday. Surprised at her appearance there, as she was credentialed via the UN, Trump told her, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Shortly after the DOJ filing, the president against attacked Collins, as well as the judge.

He wrote on Truth Social at 11:53 p.m. ET, “All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like Third Rate ‘Reporter,’ Kaitlan Collins, of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren’t going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics, in the Press Area, at the United Nations? Why was she there? She’s got a ‘TRUMP’ addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented! The ‘good news’ is that they have a great, for them, and totally disloyal Judge.”