President Donald Trump stepped up his attacks on Hollywood on Friday, telling reporters on the White House lawn, “Hollywood is racist.”
When asked by reporters whether he felt recent acts of violence in the country had anything to do with his own often provocative rhetoric, Trump turned the tables: “You talk about ‘racist.’ Hollywood is racist,” he said. “What they’re doing, with the kind of movies they’re putting out, it’s actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country.”
He offered no specifics about what movies or programming he felt was “dangerous.”
Picking up on a theme of his re-election campaign, which repeatedly has referenced “Hollywood megadonors” to his Democratic challengers, the president also criticized what he felt was a political bias by Hollywood companies.
He also hinted at a possible meeting with top executives from Hollywood and/or tech firms like Twitter, which he criticized this week for blocking Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s campaign account for terms-of-use violations. (The account has since been reinstated.)
“We have now all of the heads of the biggest companies coming in, and we’re gonna talk to them,” he said, offering no further details about which companies or when this meeting might take place. “They treat conservatives, Republicans, totally different than they treat others.”
Trump’s remarks come amid continued questioning of his rhetoric following the mass shootings over the weekend that claimed more than 30 lives. The suspected gunman behind the El Paso, Texas, massacre posted a white-supremacist manifesto to 8chan before the attack took place Saturday.
That manifesto described a Hispanic “invasion” of the country. Trump frequently uses that word when discussing immigration.
Watch the president’s remarks above, via ABC News, and read the tweets he issued a few hours later making the same points below:
….to inflame and cause chaos. They create their own violence, and then try to blame others. They are the true Racists, and are very bad for our Country!
– Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 9, 2019