Late last year, Paramount agreed to release the movie “Rush Hour 4,” reportedly at Donald Trump’s personal request. When CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last month about the propriety of such a move — pressing Paramount while the company was seeking the Republican administration’s approval on a merger — the Cabinet secretary didn’t deny the claims, though he did try to change the subject.
“I don’t know, the Obamas have a contract with Netflix. Is that appropriate?” Bessent replied.
On Thursday night, the subject returned to the fore unexpectedly.
Trump spoke briefly to reporters outside the Kennedy Center at a showing of the documentary about first lady Melania Trump. Amazon MGM Studios paid $40 million to produce that film, a sum that generated all kinds of unavoidable questions about the political motivations of the Jeff Bezos-owned company.
A reporter asked the president, “What do you say to those that are critical of the fact that Amazon paid $40 million to acquire the rights of this movie?” The Republican, apparently anticipating the question, replied, “Well, I think they’d have to go and ask President Obama, who got paid a lot of money and hasn’t done anything.”
For now, let’s put aside the fact that Barack and Michelle Obama created a production company called Higher Ground, partnered with Netflix, and did quite a bit, including producing a documentary that received an Academy Award nomination.
Let’s instead focus on the central detail, which Trump and Bessent apparently don’t understand.
The Obamas partnered with Netflix after they left the White House. That’s the whole and entire point. No one is questioning the propriety of that deal because they are private citizens with no access to the levers of federal power.
If, on the other hand, the Democratic president were still in office and a corporate giant eager to curry favor with the Obama administration decided to throw tens of millions of dollars in his direction for a movie no one wanted to see, that would likely — and correctly — be seen as highly controversial for all the obvious reasons.
Except, that didn’t happen during Obama’s tenure — and it did happen with Trump, who inexplicably thought it’d be a good idea to bring all of this up while on the red carpet.
If Republicans are looking for some precedent to which they can compare Trump’s efforts to enrich himself and profit from the presidency, they should give up now — because in the American tradition, there is simply nothing to match the scale or brazenness of what Americans are seeing now.
