When I first saw that Donald Trump had issued a written statement about sending representatives to California, I initially assumed that the comments would be related to the deadly wildfires in the Los Angeles area. That would’ve made sense: The crisis is ongoing, and the president-elect will soon be in a position to deploy federal resources to the area.
Alas, this was not the Republican’s focus. The Associated Press reported:
Donald Trump wants to make Hollywood ‘bigger, better and stronger’ and has cast Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone as stars of what he is calling his ‘Special Ambassadors to a great but very troubled place, Hollywood, California.’ On Wednesday, the President-elect announced on his social media site that the three actors would be his eyes and ears to the moviemaking town.
The closer one looked at the president-elect’s online message, the more peculiar it appeared.
For example, Trump claimed that the actors will serve as “Special Envoys.” As he really ought to know, that’s an odd title given the circumstances. I realize that Trump has an odd knack for concocting new job titles for his friends — see Ric Grenell’s, Mark Burnett’s and Massad Boulos’ official positions — but as The Washington Post recently noted, “Typically special envoys are appointed to countries where there are conflicts or no diplomatic relations, such as Iran.”
There is no precedent in the American tradition of a White House having a “special envoy” to a neighborhood in the United States.
What’s more, it’s not altogether clear whether the president-elect chose the ideal representatives. As a New York magazine report noted, Gibson “was virtually shut out in Hollywood for making racist and antisemitic comments. Though he’s working again, he remains incredibly controversial. After losing his home in the Los Angeles wildfires last week, he spread conspiracy theories on Fox News and ‘The Joe Rogan Experience,’ suggesting that people may have been ‘commissioned’ to start the devastating fires.”
In the same online message, however, Trump kept going, claiming that Hollywood is a “very troubled place” — not because of the wildfires or housing crisis, but because the president-elect believes the film industry “has lost much business over the last four years to Foreign Countries.” And what, pray tell, will this acting trio do? “These three very talented people will be my eyes and ears, and I will get done what they suggest,” Trump added, concluding that the result will be a return to “The Golden Age of Hollywood!” So to review, the incoming president wants three older actors with limited influence to serve as his representatives in Hollywood. At some point, according to the sketchy plan, they’ll think up some ideas, at which point the White House — which has effectively no authority over the entertainment industry — will ensure that the trio’s recommendations “get done,” which is expected to usher in a “Golden Age.” It’s the kind of well-thought-out plan that’s come to define Trump’s approach to problem-solving.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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