Trump blames ‘racist’ Hollywood for ‘very dangerous’ movies

President Trump took aim at the entertainment industry on Friday, blaming popular culture for pushing “dangerous” movies on society and stating that “Hollywood is racist.”

“Hollywood, I don’t call them the elites, I think the elites are people they go after in many cases,” Trump told reporters, adding, “but Hollywood is really terrible.”

{mosads}”You talk about racist, Hollywood is racist,” he continued. “What they’re doing with the kind of movies they’re putting out is actually very dangerous for our country. What Hollywood is doing is a tremendous disservice to our country.”

Trump didn’t cite any examples for calling Hollywood racist. Trump routinely comes under heavy criticism from people in the television and film industries for his policies and for contributing to racism himself. Trump last month decried the city of Baltimore as a rodent-infested city while criticizing Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who represents a part of Baltimore.

The president’s remarks about Hollywood may have been a reference to growing conservative outrage over the then-impending release of “The Hunt,” a movie that reportedly depicts Trump supporters being hunted by liberals who refer to their captives as “deplorables,” a nickname given to some Trump supporters by 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. 

The movie was slated for release on Sept. 27 and previously saw its promotion paused after the mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. The studio released a statement on Aug. 10 announcing that plans to release the film had been cancelled entirely.

It’s not entirely clear whether the film focused on liberals hunting conservatives, though it does appear to be about a group of rich people hunting human beings. A summary for the film on IMDB.com states that “twelve strangers wake up in a clearing. They don’t know where they are, or how they got there. They don’t know they’ve been chosen … for a very specific purpose … The Hunt.”

Later Friday afternoon, Trump tweeted that Hollywood liberals “are the true racists, and are very bad for our country.” 

“They create their own violence, and then try to blame others,” Trump said.

—Updated at 3:05 p.m.